Sex. Murder. Mystery(128)

Mary Letourneau seemed to thrive on her own chaos, a deliberate chaos in which she was planted firmly in the center of the storm, ready to sort it all out in the end. No matter how long she had to stay up into the night, she could handle it. It suited her personality. The kids liked it. And as time went on, she became known as a creative teacher, one who didn't line things up in neat rows with all the dots connected. For many, that was her charm.

It started from Day One and escalated only slightly until 1996 when Mary's chaos became a typhoon.

“I think there was always that disorganization, that comfort level, of being able to tolerate more volume than some teachers can. Personally, I think that's one of the reasons some children really adored being in her room. There was not a lot of structure. They got to do a whole lot of things in a different way than they did in a more structured classroom. They were given a lot of different choices,” said one friend from the school.

There was a price for the charm and personality that made Mrs. Letourneau's reputation as a “fun and creative” teacher. It was a price paid by other teachers. Mary Kay almost never made it to a meeting on time—from the very beginning of her tenure at Shorewood. When she'd arrive late for class, she'd shrug it off with a laugh and the look that all harried mothers know…. Day care problems, you know!

It was nothing for Mary to phone a staff member after eleven in the evening to check on something related to an event or project. In truth, few minded. They understood that with two, three, then four children, she had her hands full at home. From what her colleagues could tell, Steve almost always worked nights and often on the weekends, leaving his wife with the lion's share of the day-to-day family responsibilities. She had to feed the children, put them to bed and get them ready for school the next day. If she was at wit's end getting everything done, then she was like a million other working mothers.

Mary had a reputation for staying up all night working on report cards for conferences and barely finishing them as the parents walked into the classroom. Receipts turned into the office for reimbursement were noted not because of their requested sums, but for the time noted on the bottom: “Kinko's copies, 2 A.M.” According to Mary, late-night hours had been a way of life for her even as young girl. It was the Schmitz way. And later in life, she said, it was nothing for her to call her mother or sister after midnight to find out they were just clearing the dinner dishes. Mary Kay was from a family of night owls.

“But Steve was never a part of that life, that late-night rhythm,” she said later. “Partly because of his work, but also because he just didn't function the way the rest of us did. The kids understood it. We all did.”

One teacher who taught some of Mary's former students noticed that every other paper was wrinkled, and had coffee and food stains spilled onto them. The stack of papers looked more like garbage than a sheaf of schoolwork.

But in time, over the years of missed meetings and unfulfilled staff responsibilities, there was the feeling that Mary Letourneau was given special privileges. She was given more slack than just about anyone at Shorewood. One time when she was scheduled to give a portion of a presentation at a staff meeting, she did not arrive.

“Oh, you know Mary, she's on Mary's time,” said the principal as if being on time was not important. Others had families, too. Others had places to go. It was irritating and unfair. But even so, for the most part, the staff liked her. She was so very likable.

When his wife made the move from one classroom to another, Steve Letourneau came to Shorewood to help. Her room was overloaded with stuff another teacher wouldn't imagine saving.

“There were papers that she had from kids two and three years prior. These kids are fifth-graders now, why do you want to hang on to that? It was something tangible she wanted to keep,” said a teacher who was there the day of a classroom move.

It was also a sign of a woman so on the go she didn't have time for the most rudimentary of housekeeping chores. A cat box in the corner of the classroom was fetid with feces. The cat Mary had adopted to help illustrate a story she was reading with the class had been gone for more than a year.





Chapter 17

IDENTICAL TWINS AMBER and Angie Fish and their mother Joy, and older sister Lisa, were making a fresh start at Carriage Row when they moved into condominium unit 108 in 1990. The Letourneaus, in 109, were their next-door neighbors. That first day, when the twins returned a naked three-year-old Mary Claire home after the little girl went calling for the neighbors that had just vacated the Fish condo, they met Mary Kay. She was pretty and sweet and in need of some help. Too young for mall jobs, too young for boyfriends, and stuck in the south Seattle suburbs, Amber and Angie answered yes in unison when Mary Kay asked if they wanted to baby-sit. And from that day forward, the dark-haired, dark-eyed look-alikes would come to view Mary Kay, Steve, and their growing brood as close as family. But for the twins, the jewel of 109 was Mary Kay. It was more than that she was beautiful and blond, though most preteens would have held her in high regard for the physical perfection she exemplified. For the Fish twins their love of Mary Kay came from how she treated them and the way she showed a personal interest in them. She was more like a friend than some grown-up.