“Absolutely not.” Her firmness was undeniable. “Please get off my property.”
Jeff Tarkington scrambled with the show, talking with Highline School District's Nick Latham and Susan Murphy, Dr. Julia Moore and several other psychiatrists. The show went on as scheduled, but the experience left a bitter taste.
“I was struck by the many brick walls I continually ran into on trying to get answers. It seemed like there was a lock-tight grip on many of the people who were closest to this case.”
The carrots had been dangled and yanked away. With none of the principals available—Kate wouldn't go on camera, Michelle never returned phone calls, Steve wanted to put the television stuff behind him—Jeff Tarkington was left without any insiders. Except one—would-be writer Maxwell McNab. Maxwell, whose own ambitions for a book deal or a screenplay had stalled inexplicably, promised that he could deliver all kinds of materials relating to the case. Plus, he told the cable guy, if he played his cards right, Maxwell could deliver an interview with head groupie Abby Campbell. He knew all the principals—he'd visited with Mary Kay in jail and had her blessing as one of the “chosen writers” to tell her story.
Jeff Tarkington was interested at first. Very interested. But his enthusiasm waned as Maxwell became more aggressive about remuneration.
“He made it abundantly clear he wanted to be paid,” Jeff Tarkington remembered.
At one point, the producer, a little desperate for sources, trial-ballooned an offer to have Maxwell serve as a consultant. He jerked the offer before Maxwell signed on.
“I thought better of it almost immediately, and thought, no. So the offer was never really truly made to [Maxwell]. But he really decided that that was the bandwagon that he should sort of hop on.”
They didn't speak again.
“I never returned any of his messages after I returned from Seattle. It didn't seem right to me. We don't pay for interviews and we never have.”
When Boston attorney Susan Howards first came into the picture in late spring, early summer of 1998, members of the media rejoiced. Many hoped the see-sawing of interviews granted and taken away would end. But there wasn't any improvement. In fact, for the BBC producer, it appeared to go from bad to worse when he learned it was David Gehrke—the affable and media-loving lawyer—not Bob Huff who had been replaced.
James Kent was bewildered and phoned Susan Howards to sort out the mess. According to the BBC producer, the Boston lawyer was in the dark, too.
“What wasn't made clear to Susan Howards was that Robert Huff would retain under his contract all media liaison between subjects and the media. All contractual deals, any money all went through Robert Huff. Susan Howards wasn't aware of that until it became clear that he did have those rights and again the BBC had a little problem,” James Kent said later.
It was the modern version of an age-old tabloid story. Lawyers and members of the media tripped over each other in pursuit of who would talk and who would broadcast or write about what was said. In this case, James Kent felt great sympathy for the subject of his film. She said she wanted to do the BBC film, but her hands were tied, though to what degree she was uncertain.
It was frustrating and a complete waste of time for many of those who had come to Seattle to tell the story and head back home. Home to New York, Santa Monica, or London. If someone had only made the terms clear, some like the BBC producer Kent would have backed off. But no one could. And sadly for the BBC—and ultimately Mary Kay Letourneau—James Kent was under the pressure of a deadline. With money already spent and no conclusive hope that Mary would face his camera, he had to move on and look for another way to tell the story.
“But of course within the contract there were also things, I assume, that were not to be made public, and even when she asked for the contract at least to be given to her new lawyer Susan Howards, this seemed to be so long in coming that we had to proceed on the basis in the end that we wouldn't get her.”
James Kent was very disappointed. He had come to Seattle with the promise and understanding that an interview with Mary would be forthcoming. He had wanted to be fair to the woman embroiled in the story her handlers were making more unseemly every day. He had wanted to look into her eyes and make an assessment based upon the hours he had spent on the case and the years he had spent interviewing people. He wanted to provide his audience with the complete, true picture of the American teacher who said she fell in love with her student.
The way he viewed it, Mary Letourneau had a media battle to win and he was just the producer to lead the charge. But as the days and weeks passed none of what he could do for her mattered. And in the end, he just couldn't fathom the way it had turned out and the role of those around her. He was the uninvited guest at everyone's dinner table.