A sordid web of Sex, Lies and money.

1999 the opulent suburb of Toro Canyon in Austin Texas, millionaire TV executive Steven Beard jolts awake. He has no idea what is wrong, then he reaches down, there is a gaping wound in his stomach. He just looked down and saw his internal organs laying outside of his body. Paramedics fight to save the 75 year old man. By the commotion Steven’s 37 year old wife Celeste arrives from her separate bedroom. No one is sure what has happened until police find a vital clue. Stephen Beard has been shot. When there is a shotgun blast to the abdomen, multiple pellets are gonna be perforating the stomach, causing leakage of hydrochloric acid, the pancreas causing leakage of all of the digestive enzymes. Then most importantly multiple shots to the intestines is going to cause leakage of bacteria. It is a very slow and painful death.

Ballistic tests on the shotgun shell lead police straight to the killer. Tracey Tarlton, a friend of the family but this is no open-and-shut case. It is a sordid web of Sex, Lies and money. One that draws in crime writer Diane Fanning. They knew that Tracey had pulled the trigger but they suspected someone else was involved but Tracey just would not talk. Tracey has a secret, I am venturing this before I thought we would be together. She's in love with the dead millionaire’s glamorous young wife Celeste, but Celeste Beard is not the woman Tracey thinks she is. Celeste Beard had a very rough childhood. There was a lot of instability, alcohol abuse in the family and she really had it wrong. Celeste grows up to become a teenage mother with a string of broken marriages by her mid-30s.

Celeste is a struggling single mother working at the Austin Country Club, desperate for money and lots of it. To use the old-fashioned term Celeste Beard was a fortune on her and she was determined to make her way in the world on the back of someone else. When she meets Stephen Beard she hits the jackpot, at the time Stephen was married to Eloise and from everything everyone has said, they had a wonderful happy marriage. Then Eloise died of cancer and when that happened Celeste knew what she wanted. Now a lonely widower Stephen Beard is easy prey for Celeste. She paid attention to him, that's what he needed at the time, someone to pay attention to him and he just went hook line and sinker. To daughter Becky Beard, Celeste motive is obvious. I think it was money. I think Celeste was after his money but Stephen is entranced becoming husband number four with riches beyond her wildest dreams.

Celeste launches an epic shopping spree. She was insane about spending money. She could have gone a year and a half wearing a different pair of shoes in purse everyday and not run out. At one point, he gave her 1 million outright and she went through it in record time like six months. The only thing Celeste isn't willing to spend is time with her husband. She had married him only for money, so obviously she didn't find this 75 year old man sexually attractive and she really didn't want to be sexually involved with him. Stephen Beard is happy until the money starts to run out. He wants to cut off her cash supply but Celeste can't survive without money and says she'll kill herself to keep it. Celeste threatened suicide when Stephen wanted to cut off her supply of money because for Celeste shopping was like heroin, she had to do it.

Every time she bought something it made her feel good but for Celeste there was never enough, 50 million wouldn't have been enough. Suicidal Celeste is committed to a psychiatric hospital. It's a fatal move, waiting there is an unstable patient looking for love. It's Tracey Tarlton, Stephen Beard’s killer. Celeste Beard is a fortune hunter, her prey is millionaire husband Stephen Beard but he's getting jumpy. When Stephen threatened to take away her credit cards, it threatened her very self-esteem. After threatening suicide, she's placed in psychiatric care and meets Tracey. Tracey was an emotionally unstable woman who had been in and out of hospitals for depression and other disorders for quite some time. Lonely 35 year old Tracey hungers for love, in the same ways Celeste craves money. She's infatuated with this glamorous new patient and Celeste leads her on. Tracey taut and loves less Beard. I don't think there's any doubt about that.

Prosecuting attorney Gary Cobb, it's less beard I don't think he ever loved, maybe not even maybe, didn't even like Tracey Tarlton but she was willing to engage in a lesbian relationship in order to get what she wanted. Celeste used sex to get what she wanted and what she wanted was money. Outside hospital, the affair intensifies and it's anything but a secret. We had pictures of them together looking like a couple. We had evidences they were going to shows together. We had evidence that they were going to couples counseling together . We had evidence that Celeste Beard had brought tracing a particularly kind of ring to cement their relationship. Celeste can't stand her millionaire husband Steven, she even drugs him so she can sneak out but she can't afford a divorce because Celeste had signed a prenuptial agreement.

She was only guaranteed a minimum amount of money if she divorced Steven, and he had already given her that money. She has blown it. Blinded by greed. she makes a decision. Stephen has to go. The solution for her was, if I kill him, I can have a lot of money and it will all be mine. In lovelorn Tracey, Celeste has found a willing accomplice. I think for Celeste and Tracey they had a master/slave relationship. Celeste was the master, Tracey was the slave. Tracey's master has a job for her. Celeste planned the killing out very carefully. She drugged her husband's drink to make sure that he fell asleep. She went into the other wing of the house where she could justifiably say she heard nothing. Then she left the doors open so that Tracey could sneak in. Tracey has her own reasons for wanting Steven dead.

He is the one thing standing between her and true love. Tracey's faith is absolute, she assumes Celeste will get rid of the evidence. Miss lesbian never attempted or intended to pick up shotgun shell. The police immediately go to Tracey Tarlton's house and Tracey is not a very good criminal. She was not a person who had the proper frame of mind to kill somebody. She's already feeling guilty about it. She immediately tells them while they're in her front door. Yes, I have a shotgun. Tracy Tarlton pays a high price for love, sentenced to life for murder. But Celeste is still under suspicion, they kept pressuring Traci, trying to get her to give up Celeste. Because they knew there was no reason for Tracey to do this completely on her own. Tracey stays silent, waiting in jail for the woman she loves.

Celeste waits for no one. She has Steven’s money, now she wants more. It was not till a year later that Celeste went and married husband number five in Aspen Colorado. Tracey reads one day in the newspaper that's Celeste Beard has remarried. She is shocked by that but what drives home is lesbian never loved her, never cared about her and only used her. Furious Tracey breaks her vow of silence. Celeste Beard is found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life. What brought Celeste down was greed, self-centeredness and a willingness to do anything she wanted, no matter who stood in the way. This is a woman who showed up at his house, when she came to live with him, with the box that contained everything that she owned. One box and he gave her mantle, gave her Lake houses, gave her entree into a society, she never would have been able to step her dirt and love feet into and for that she turns around and murder him.