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James Kent did not see her during that visit, but Mary Kay told him over the phone that she and her lawyers were very interested in participating in a film produced by the BBC. With that understanding, James Kent returned to London and arranged for financing.

When he returned to Seattle a short time later things had changed dramatically. By that time, messages weren't being returned by either David Gehrke or Robert Huff. Mary Kay, however, still seemed supportive of the BBC production, to the extent that she made repeated calls to the producer providing background and details that would constitute the basis for the on-camera interview that they agreed to record at the prison later in the summer.

By that time, several media deals were hammered out. Sonny Grosso, a New York producer, negotiated the rights for a television movie that eventually found a home at cable's USA Network. A book was also in the works. The publishing company was French—Fixot, headquartered in Paris. The publisher was Robert Laffont.

The rumored deal for the French book alone was a quarter of a million dollars.

“It was much more than that,” David Gehrke said later of the deal that gave Bob Huff a fifteen to twenty percent agent's fee and united both convicted rapist and victim in a mutual business deal. How much Mary Kay was getting from both deals was unclear. She told friends that a trust fund with proceeds from the book was being set up for “all of my children.” She had no profit participation with the movie.

“They [Bob Huff and David Gehrke] didn't want my name on anything,” she said later. “My involvement in any deal could be used against me by the prosecution.”

There was no contract for the TV movie and no direct promise of money, though at one time a lump sum was discussed in lieu of a percentage of the gross.

“I'm not getting anything, but I hope that there is some gift for my children. I haven't asked Susan [Gehrke] about it, but I'm hoping.”

James Kent rented a house and planned to stay for six weeks—four weeks researching and two filming.

“I was caught up in a kind of media legal tangle that I had never experienced before. It clearly was a story that involved legal participants and those in the media circle around the story in a way they themselves got entangled in it. I think there was money to be made from this story and I think that did complicate clear lines of command. Mary couldn't, ideally, represent herself. She was caught between her legal team and the media.”

The British producer knew a book deal was in the offing, but he didn't know exactly how wrapped up into the whole affair Mary Letourneau and her two Seattle lawyers were. The publishing company had big plans for the story, including a documentary and possibly even a theatrical release. What no one knew for the first few weeks of the spring of 1998 was what that all meant to members of the media seeking access to Mary Kay.

“I think they [the lawyers] themselves, to be fair, didn't realize that the publishers of the book, who had their own intended documentary planned, would have reacted so negatively to a BBC film being made.”

James Kent would become less charitable in his assessment of the Letourneau legal team. In the beginning he found sympathy for their position. He sensed David Gehrke and Bob Huff were in over their heads, unused to a story of the magnitude of the Letourneau case.

“They found themselves, let me put it this way, caught between the devil and the deep blue sea—the media, the book publishers in France, and the BBC in London,” he said later.

Sometimes Kate Stewart would wonder how it got so strange. There she was, darkness all around, with time to think about nothing but Mary Kay Letourneau. Kate was up at two A.M. waiting for a messenger to come from People magazine to take photos from Chicago to New York. She had spent half the night carefully identifying the images of Mary Kay and Steve, mostly from her 1988 wedding.

“They were a happy little family,” she said later while reviewing the images remaining in her album. Empty pages provided silent testimony to the demand for pictures from her wedding.

Mary Kay had loathed the jailhouse photos, the mug shots that had been plastered in the media. She wanted something decent out and Kate agreed not only because she was her friend, but also because she had a treasure trove of Mary Kay photos.

That early morning as she waited, firemen were flushing the hydrants and a spray of water hit the edge of the Stewarts' charming front porch. She kept an eye on the family dog to make sure no one woke up. But mostly she worried about the water ruining the photos in an envelope on the porch and the bizarre turn of events of the past months.

How did I get involved with this crazy story? she asked herself.





Chapter 72

MARY KAY LETOURNEAU was pregnant. It was the topper of all toppers and when it was discovered in mid-March it pushed Mary Kay Letourneau back on the front pages of newspapers and into world headlines—though there had barely been a lull since her arrest in February. Newsgroups chattered about her on the Internet. Talk shows geared up. American Journal came calling again. After she arrived in prison, a sonogram was performed and it detected the heartbeat of a six-week-old fetus. The fact that she was pregnant again moved her story into the category of the unbelievable, but true. For Mary Kay, it gave her something on which to focus while she appealed her case and sought a new lawyer. She was overjoyed at the life growing within her.