Sex. Murder. Mystery(150)

“She never wore anything that fit her,” a mother recalled. “Yet she was so beautiful. It was strange.”

When the kids asked about her layering, Mary shyly explained that her choice in attire was the result of a comment.

“One of my friends said I was bony,” she said.

She wore the layers to cover up what most considered was a beautiful figure, yet somehow Mary had got it in her head that she was grotesquely thin—a nineties Twiggy. No one thought she had an eating disorder. In fact, most marveled at her ability to eat whatever she wanted without gaining an ounce. Even so, it was apparent to many that Mary Letourneau was obsessed about her weight, or lack of it. But there were other options. A number of students at Shorewood favored baggy clothes, the rapper or gangster style. Some wondered if Mary Letourneau was making a fashion statement when she wore clothes that hung on her like a sheet on a drying line. But something else was going on, too. One time she came to class without her usual layers. Instead, Mary wore a woman's long-sleeved cotton T-shirt and a wool skirt. Without mentioning names, she later told a friend what happened: “Somebody was obviously scanning me, giving me the eye, looking at me at places where I wouldn't want anyone to look. He said, 'Hey, now we can see it all.' I went out to my car and put on another shirt. It upset me. I think when I talked to him later I even used the word 'harass' when I said I felt uncomfortable with what he was saying and where he was looking.”

Students tried to encourage her whenever possible. One time when bolstered by her sixth-graders, Mary wore a green dress that was stylish and the Round Table kids told her how terrific she looked. Mary accepted the compliment and wore the dress several more times. She never looked better that entire year.

Though none of them knew it then, the next time they would see that green dress was when their teacher appeared on TV. On her way to court.

Though Mary Letourneau had never seemed particularly happy in her marriage with Steve, things worsened during 1994–1996 at Shorewood Elementary. She told a teacher friend that she had married Steve Letourneau only because she became pregnant. Her Catholic-to-the-hilt mother had put her foot down. “There was no way she was not going to marry Steve.”

Mary told the other teacher that she had loved another man and had been engaged to be married, but she had been jilted. Steve Letourneau had been a rebound relationship.

It surprised the Shorewood colleague when she learned that Mary was pregnant with her fifth baby. She knew from previous conversations that Mary hadn't slept with her husband for months. And, equally puzzling, Mary hadn't been the one to tell her that she was pregnant. She learned it from someone else.

“Whose baby is it?” the teacher asked, knowing immediately that her question was odd, but it just came out. She had assumed that Steve was not the father. She didn't know who, though.

Mary thought about it for a second and answered.

“Actually, it's my baby,” she said. She went on to say that she knew her body and could gauge her ovulation with complete precision.

It didn't answer the question, but it did confuse the friend. Was she saying that she was pregnant by Steve, after all? Or had she found someone else and decided to have a baby?

Later when Mary showed her the silvery films of an ultrasound examination, the friend asked if Steve had been accompanying her to the obstetrician's office.

“No,” she said firmly. “This is my baby.”

Money was always a big worry for Mary Letourneau and most at Shorewood knew it. Of course, with teacher salaries being what they were, a husband who threw baggage for a living, and four kids with another on the way, money would be an issue for just about anyone. Mary never had any money of her own and it bothered her. Her paycheck was used to pay the mortgage on the Normandy Park house. Steve had insisted.

“Steve had control of the money,” said a teacher who knew Mary well. “Her check went to the house payment because 'that was the house she wanted.' ”

Though she said she never wanted the van in the first place, Mary was glad for it because it afforded her an opportunity to do some secret stockpiling. During the 1996–97 school year, the pregnant sixth-grade teacher told a colleague that she had begun to squirrel away extra cash.

“She had secret places in the van to hide it,” the teacher said later. “She wanted to have some money herself.”

The disclosure wasn't that peculiar; the teacher knew that Mary and Steve were having serious marital troubles. Mary freely talked about those problems. But when a teacher tried to talk to Mary about her own finances or any other subject from her life, she doubted Mary was paying much attention.