Sex. Murder. Mystery(129)

“I thought she was really young,” Amber Fish recalled some years later. “I always thought she was really young in how she looked and acted. She always made us feel older when we talked to her. She respected us. She talked to us all the time. We always felt like we were on a real communicative level with her.”

Angie agreed with her twin.

“She would go down to our level. She made me feel like an adult when I was thirteen or fourteen. I think it was because she asked our opinions about the kids. She didn't just say, 'You need to do this and this… ' She asked for our input. When we were there she had us interact with the family so we felt more superior, on her level.”

The Fish girls also adored Steve Letourneau. At twenty-eight, the handsome man was in perfect shape, outgoing, and fun to be around. Their adoration went deeper. With their father out of the picture, the girls' only male role model was Steve. He was the other half of the perfect family that had been missing in their own lives. Steve spent time with his children, worked in the garage, and redid the kitchen cabinets.

Amber Fish later wondered if what she had seen in those early days was an illusion.

“I thought they were the perfect family. That's what was so shocking about it. We knew there were arguments and disagreements, but they were beautiful, all-American people. I really thought they were honestly the perfect family. They were bustin' ass,” she said.

The condition of the Letourneau household was the opposite of the Fish family's condo. If Joy Fish kept a stable, spotless, and orderly home for her three daughters, Mary Kay's house was utter chaos. All day, all night. Nothing happened on schedule. Dinner was served at ten P.M. so often that the twins thought nothing of smelling the barbecue smoke wafting into their bedroom at that late hour.

Steve's making dinner again.

Piles of school papers, toys, and books grew in every place possible, from the kitchen to the living room to the bathroom to the risers leading upstairs. Sometimes Mary Kay asked the girls to come over to help her get organized. While the house was cluttered, Mary Kay was positively fanatical about cleanliness at that time.

“She hated dirt and dust. If there were crumbs on the table, the minute she walked into the house she grabbed a sponge to wipe up any crumbs,” Angie said later.

When Mary Kay needed help grading papers, she sometimes turned to the neighbor girls and the three would be up until two A.M. carefully reviewing student papers. A few times the Fish girls stayed the night because it was just too late to go home.

The girls chalked up the perpetual chaos to the different schedules of a two-income family. Steve worked a late shift at Alaska Airlines and Mary Kay was a schoolteacher with work that was carted home because there was not enough time in the day to get it done.

And throughout the maelstrom of their lives, it was clear that Mary Kay had the upper hand. Steve was a follower.

“It was Mary Kay's way or no way, basically,” Amber said later. “They did what Mary Kay wanted to do.”

Only once did the girls see Steve lay down the law. When Mary Kay cut her finger and wanted to go to the emergency room, Steve told her no.

“They fought about it forever. I remember she got so pissed. She was bleeding and bleeding and bleeding. And Steve was, like, 'You're not going to the emergency room for that!' “

The Fish girls figured it was a money thing. Money always seemed to be tight—at least cash was hard to come by. Whenever it came time to pay the girls for baby-sitting Mary Kay would say Steve would pay them. Steve would say Mary Kay would pay them. It was the old “check's in the mail” without the need to involve the postal service.

The girls didn't care. Whenever they were paid they were paid well, but the money didn't matter. The Letourneau condo was a hangout, a place to gather with the all-American family and share their dreams or problems. Mary Kay was always willing to engage in long discussions with the girls.

“We used to talk to her all the time, and she'd get so sidetracked,” Angie recalled. “We'd talk about one thing and five minutes later a whole new subject would come up. We spent a lot of time over there.”

To hear Steve's grandmother tell it, Mary Kay was a selfish girl who would stop at nothing to get what she wanted. What she wanted most, besides attention, was money. Grandma Nadine would never forget the time Mary Kay told her and her other daughter that Sharon should fork over the bucks she “should have paid for child support” when Sharon and Dick Letourneau split up.

Nadine bristled. Sharon had paid for plenty, and Steve and Stacy Letourneau never went without anything because she didn't support them. Besides, it wasn't any concern of Mary's.