Later, in her report she wrote:
“I asked him what kind of relationship it was. He was very quiet and did not say anything at that time. I asked him if it was a boyfriend-girlfriend type relationship. He said it was. I asked him if it went any further than that. Vili said they had sex.”
The detective knew what she had. She arranged for an emergency joint interview with an assistant King County prosecuting attorney and drove Vili downtown. There, Vili told a story that included the exchange of rings, love letters, and, finally, sexual intercourse starting in the spring of 1996.
The prosecuting attorney wrote Vili's version of the first time:
“He said he spent the night at her house and it just happened… Mary's husband was working… the kids were asleep. He said they were in the den watching shows, he thinks Braveheart. He said she started talking to him about psychics and stuff like that; that a psychic she supposedly talked to said she was going to have a hard life, and told Mary that she was going to meet someone with dark skin and be with him… then they just did it.”
Vili told the lawyer and the cop that Mary Kay said her husband beat her and that he shouldn't tell anyone what had happened. She could lose her job. He also acknowledged that his brother and his best friend knew about the relationship.
His brother had walked into the bedroom at the Normandy Park house one time and saw them together on the bed.
After the interview with the thirteen-year-old Samoan boy, Pat Maley took the boy back to his house and drove to the school, and minutes later Mary Kay Letourneau was called out of a Shorewood staff meeting. It was 4:30 P.M.
“I think you know what this is about,” Pat Maley said.
Mary Kay stood there for a moment with her hands at her sides. Her face was white. Her red Nordstrom T-shirt and black pleated skirt hung over her belly. It was clear she was six months pregnant.
“I think I might have an idea,” Mary Kay said.
One teacher who saw her leave with the police officer assumed that there had been a death in the family, maybe a terrible traffic accident involving Steve. It looked rough. She hoped Mary Kay would be all right.
It was out in the detective's car that Mary Kay Letourneau was arrested for rape of a child. She was upset, but focused on two things. She wanted to know if Vili was all right and she wanted to know what would happen to her class. Would she be returning to school? Detective Maley told her that she thought Vili was doing fine, and that Highline security would probably be contacting her about her job.
In the interrogation room at the King County Police precinct in Kent, May Kay began to unravel. She cried and stopped. And cried some more. Mary Kay told the detective that she didn't know what to say or do. She wanted to know how Vili's family felt about her and the situation. She wanted to know if it was Steve who had turned her in. The detective refused to answer. When Pat Maley asked about the letters that Linda said Steve had found, Mary Kay said Steve sent them to his family in Alaska for safekeeping. She described the letters as a “blackmail tool.”
The detective wrote: “She said he was using these letters… to keep her from leaving him and obtaining a divorce.”
When the detective pressed Mary Kay for the identity of the father of the baby she was so visibly carrying, the teacher said there was a “99.9 percent chance” it was not Steve's.
“I told her at that time that I hoped it would be her husband's and not a thirteen-year-old child's baby. She said she did not want it to be her husband's.”
Mary Kay cried some more. She told the detective that she was tired of being alone and she had found comfort in the relationship with Vili. She knew the relationship was wrong, but there was a reason for it. They were in love. But the detective wasn't listening to her.
She later said she thought the detective was cold and sarcastic.
“Just the way she asked the questions,” Mary Kay said, mimicking a snotty, condescending voice. “It was like, 'so where's the ring?' 'So tell me about this psychic' “
That evening, Mary Kay found her way to Shorewood music teacher Beth Adair's Seattle home. The visit cemented a bond that would grow stronger over time. In her fifties, divorced, with children ranging from a teenager to one about Mary Kay's age, Beth Adair had known Mary Kay since her student teaching days at Gregory Heights.
“We had a connection and an understanding,” Mary Kay said later. “Beth is a wonderful woman and we connected on that level, woman to woman. She understood me. She considered us her kids, Vili and I.”
The music teacher scooped Mary Kay up in her arms and told her she'd be all right. That night there were tears and phone calls. Mary Kay called her father and told him what had happened. John Schmitz promised he'd come see his daughter; he'd bring her a car because Steve would have the van. She'd be able to get through it. When she finally got home it was after three the next morning. Steve and the children were asleep and it felt so good to be home. In some ways, she thought, it felt like nothing had changed.