Empty Promises: And Other True Cases

  John's calls continued. Finally, Leigh's roommate complained to the dorm adviser that she couldn't use the phone because John called so much. The phone rang constantly whether Leigh was in her dorm room or not. When John did catch her in, he dragged out the conversations as if he could bind her to him with a telephone cord.

  Several times during the fall, John drove to the Washington State campus, deliberately arriving unexpectedly. Each time, he convinced himself that everything would be all right again. And sometimes Leigh seemed glad to see him. But there were also times when she tried to tell him that it was really over between them and that he had to stop coming to Pullman. It was a twelve-hour drive round-trip, which gave him time to obsess about what he had lost.

  John was on an emotional yo-yo. Of course the more he tried to hold on to Leigh, the more she pulled away. She felt suffocated. One can only imagine his thoughts as he made the grueling trip— up over Snoqualmie Pass, where the blizzards piled up drifts of snow from November to May, and then across the endless rolling wheat fields of the Palouse country. There weren't many towns along the way to take John's mind off his mission.

  As Christmas neared, John began to realize that Leigh really was leaving him. He had tried pleading and cajoling. Worse, he'd even tried physically forcing her into his car when he saw her walking on campus. Her reaction was to pull even further away from him. Any love she'd had for him was now gone. Leigh was only eighteen; she wanted to be free. At first, she thought John would give up peaceably. She was as deluded as every other woman who realizes too late that she has become the focal point of a man's obsessive love.

  Leigh Hayden began to be frightened. She no longer wanted to see John at all. Leigh tried to focus on her new world. She told Janet McKay, a senior who served as a resident adviser in her dorm, that John had been bothering her. She wanted to make it official that he was not a welcome visitor. If he came around to surprise her, she didn't want to have to talk to him.

  Lovesick boyfriends aren't that unusual in college dorms. Leigh's friends and counselors realized that John always seemed to be shadowing her, but they all assumed he'd give up sooner or later. Leigh and her roommate lived on the fifth floor of the Streit-Perham Dormitory in the middle of the Wazzu campus, near the Performing Arts Coliseum. The dormitory, which was built in 1962, consisted of two six-story towers connected by a common lounge and dining room. Approximately 550 students were housed in the towers, and 46 of them lived on the fifth floor of Perham Hall where Leigh Hayden lived. It was a coeducational dorm, a circumstance which would have horrified the parents of college students two decades earlier, and John Stickney hated the arrangement.

  * * *

  It was the week before Christmas 1979. Residents of the Streit-Perham towers were preparing to pack up and go home for the holidays. Washington State was on a semester system, so Christmas festivities were not marred by the tension of final exams. Those would come later, at the end of January. This was a time for fun and celebration, and many groups of students crossed the state line into Moscow, Idaho, less than fifteen miles away, where the legal drinking age was eighteen. The county and state cops kept a permanent watch on the roads between Pullman and Moscow, trying to keep accidents and DUI tickets among the student drivers to a minimum.

  The towers of Streit-Perham were decorated for the holidays, and most of the residents had adorned their rooms with holly, fir boughs, and miniature Christmas trees. Winter snow was the rule rather than the exception in Pullman, and the frigid winds that swept across the hilltop campus did nothing to dampen the spirit of the season.

  Leigh Hayden knew that she would have to talk with John when she got home; there was no way he would not try to see her when they were both on Mercer Island. They had shared wonderful Christmases together, but those were in the past, and she would have to let him know that. He had to follow the same rules at home that he did when he came to the campus. They were not going steady anymore. As far as she was concerned, they were no longer even dating.

  For the time being, during this last week before the Christmas holidays began, Leigh decided not to worry about it. She didn't think John would attempt to make the drive over the snow-clogged mountain passes, especially when he knew she'd be home on December 22.

  On Monday, December 17, John Stickney put in a full eight hours on his job, blasting rock out of a quarry with dynamite. His foreman and his co-workers didn't notice that he behaved any differently than he always did. He didn't seem upset or angry. He was just the same open-faced dependable kid they'd always known.

  When John left the job that night, it was already dark. He shouted that he'd see his co-workers the next morning. But John didn't go home that night. He didn't call Leigh either. Instead, he got in his car and headed east. Up through Issaquah and North Bend, then up over the summit of Snoqualmie Pass. It was icy at the top, with snow drifting across the road as he neared the summit. Even the skiers had given up for the night, and the lighted slopes were deserted.

  John Stickney had 300 miles to go. He had confided to a friend that he was going to talk to Leigh one more time and that this time it would be decided "one way or another."

  His words were so cryptic and so unlike him that his friend was concerned. Just to be on the safe side, John's friend called the head resident adviser in the dorm where Leigh lived. "John Stickney is on his way over there again. He said he's going to see Leigh."

  Later, there were rumors that the phone call included the warning that John had a gun. Except for the few times he had grabbed Leigh in frustration and pulled her into his car, he had never been a violent man. The warning that John Stickney was headed toward the Washington State campus was taken seriously, probably because the dorm adviser wanted to spare Leigh any embarrassment that John might cause her. Nobody was really worried that he would be violent. John's demeanor with the staff at Perham Hall had always been courteous and quiet. When he showed up there, he only asked to see Leigh; he had never caused a scene.

  Leigh and her roommate were quietly moved to a room on the sixth floor of the dorm. If and when John actually showed up, he wouldn't be able to find her.

  The night wore on. At 10:00 P.M., the outer doors to the dorm were locked. Leigh and her roommate tried to fall asleep in the temporary room on the sixth floor. If John was really headed for Pullman, which was still only a rumor, he would probably check into a motel and call Leigh's room from there.

  John Stickney was on his way. A little before 11:30 his car reached the top of the hill approaching Pullman. He could see the campus lights across the valley, twinkling on the next hill. He knew Leigh was there, snug and warm inside one of the red-brick buildings. He was sure that this time she wouldn't be expecting him. She would really be surprised to see him this late on a weeknight. It was desperately important to him that this visit be a happy surprise.

  The campus police had been alerted that John might show up at Perham Hall. Officers on the night shift patrol were asked to keep an eye out for him. Somehow— and no one knows how— John Stickney managed to get into the locked dormitory at 11:30 P.M. Without hesitating, he headed for Leigh's room on the fifth floor. He knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again and waited. He couldn't hear a radio or television or the girls' voices. He opened the unlocked door, and found the room unoccupied.

  Where was she? She should have been there.

  John turned swiftly and walked down to Adviser Janet McKay's room. She gasped when she opened her door. She wondered how he had managed to get into the Perham tower. Still, he was as polite and cordial as ever. He wore blue jeans and a parka, and he looked tired, but he didn't appear manic or dangerous.

  "Where's Leigh?" he asked. "She's not in her room."

  "I haven't seen her all evening," Janet answered. "You really shouldn't be here now. It's after lockup time."

  For the first time, John showed irritation. He said he had no intention of leaving until he saw Leigh. Janet McKay managed to call the campus police, and they persua
ded him to leave. He was not combative and he left quietly. The police kept an eye on him, but all he did was drive aimlessly around the campus during the early morning hours. He made no attempt to get back into Perham Hall.

  It was Tuesday afternoon before John finally got Leigh on the phone. He said he needed to talk to her face-to-face, and he insisted that he would not go back to Mercer Island until she agreed to talk to him. That was all he was asking. It was finally arranged that the ex-sweethearts would meet on neutral ground— in Adviser McKay's room.

  The meeting lasted only ten minutes. Exactly what Leigh told John was never made public, but it was clear that she was adamant this time. Finally and forever it was all over between them. There would be no more pleading, no more promises, nothing would change her mind.

  John Stickney left. The romance seemed to be over, and everyone heaved a sigh of relief.

  Less than fifteen minutes later, however, Head Adviser Mary Beth Johnson entered an elevator on the ground floor and was startled to find John Stickney inside. She recognized him and introduced herself. She told him that she was aware of his problem, and he replied that he had to see Leigh just one more time. There was an odd urgency about him that alarmed Mary Beth Johnson.

  John Stickney had taken nothing to the meeting in Janet McKay's office, but Ms. Johnson didn't know that. Now she noted that he had a book bag over his arm and that it appeared to be quite heavy.

  "I understand that you want to see Leigh," she said carefully, "but I'd like to talk with her for a few minutes first. Would you agree to that?"

  Stickney nodded. But when the elevator arrived on the fifth floor he got off right behind her and she could hear his footsteps keeping pace with hers down the long hallway. Thinking fast, she reached Leigh's room, stepped inside, and quickly locked the door behind her. Now Leigh Hayden, her roommate, Janet McKay, and Mary Beth Johnson were inside a small dorm room with nothing but a thin door between them and John Stickney.

  Before Ms. Johnson had a chance to say anything, there was a crashing, splintering sound at the door. John was trying to kick it in. Again and again, he slammed his boot into the door. It shuddered and held. The women huddled together, frightened. There was nowhere to hide, and they were five floors up, so they couldn't escape out the window. John's voice was very calm, but he gave orders in a forceful way. "Open the door," he said stubbornly. "I want you to open the door." While they huddled against the opposite wall, he kicked it again, and bric-a-brac fell off a shelf and shattered.

  Mary Beth Johnson grabbed the phone and alerted the campus police that John Stickney was back, that there was trouble, and that they needed help.

  Suddenly the crashing against the door stopped. There was dead silence for a moment or so. And then John began speaking again in a flat voice with no emotion. Leigh had never heard him speak in this matter-of-fact way and it was far more frightening than when he raised his voice.

  "I have a bomb," he said in that same awful voice. "Someone's going to get hurt if you don't let me in."

  He wasn't shouting; he didn't even sound angry, but Leigh knew that he meant what he said. She knew that he was an expert in explosive devices. He could have walked away from his job with everything he needed to make a bomb. He worked with dynamite, and he knew how to set a charge and detonate a device with enough power to blow away half of a rocky hill. It had been his craft for several years, and he was good at it. She knew he was capable of blowing the whole dorm to kingdom come. "He probably does have a bomb," she said. "He means it. He knows how to make one."

  The women looked at one another and silently agreed to make a run for it. They had nothing to lose, and if they didn't try, they might all die— and so would the other residents in rooms along the fifth-floor hall. Mary Beth Johnson flung open the door, and the four women took John Stickney by surprise as they tumbled out of the room and ran screaming down the hall. "Run! Run!" they cried out to the other three dozen residents on the floor. "He has a bomb!"

  It was chaos as frightened coeds raced down the hall, most of them so intent on getting away that they didn't even see the tall blond man in the parka. The fifth floor was soon deserted. The only person left was John Stickney. He hadn't tried to stop the fleeing women. He had watched them run, his face as calm as if everything was completely normal. He hadn't tried to follow them. Oddly, he didn't even reach out for his beloved Leigh one last time.

  Anyone who thinks a campus cop has an easy job might consider the task facing the Washington State campus officers who raced to the fifth floor of Perham Hall, as the coeds fled. Lieutenant Mike Kenny, age thirty-five, and Officer David Trimble, twenty-six, reached the floor first, followed by Officer Roger Irwin.

  They stopped when they saw John Stickney, standing almost motionless in the hallway. He had a bomb all right; he must have carried it in the innocuous-looking book bag. Now they could see that it was a metallic cylinder three or four inches in diameter and a foot long— just the right size to hold sticks of dynamite. He held two wires that led to a battery. If it was like most simple bombs, that battery would detonate blasting caps and dynamite. Kenny and Trimble held their hands in the air as John ordered; they were desperately fighting for time, and they didn't want to irritate the tall blond youth. They knew that other officers were frantically trying to clear the dormitory of the hundreds of students who occupied all the other floors. The crisis could have been worse; it was two in the afternoon by now and many of the residents were in class. But this was bad enough.

  All working police officers take a class in dealing with bombs, and all of them fervently hope they will never come in contact with one. Compared to seeing a bomb in the hands of a deranged subject, facing a .357 Magnum is a picnic.

  The two officers moved toward Stickney, talking quietly, fighting to keep the tremor from their voices. "Come on, John… we can talk," Mike Kenny said. "This isn't the answer. Think about what you're doing. Let's put the bomb down. Let's talk about it. Things aren't as bad as you think."

  Stickney shook his head.

  "Put it down, John. Put it down. You don't really want to hurt anyone. You're mixed up." Moving so slowly that the inches they covered were almost imperceptible, the two officers advanced down the hall toward John, their hands still high over their heads. From the end of the hall, Officer Roger Irwin watched, barely breathing.

  "We'll help you work it out," Officer Trimble said. "You can talk to Leigh. She'll understand. What are you? Eighteen? Nineteen? Hell, there's a whole life ahead of you. Put [the bomb] down, and we'll see that you get some help. You don't want to hurt anybody. We don't want you to get hurt." Trimble was close enough to touch Stickney now. The bomb was within arm's reach. It looked deadly. It looked as if it could level the whole dorm. Trimble no longer thought about himself; he prayed that all the students had made it safely outside. "Come on, John. Give it to me… gently," Trimble said in as calm a voice as he could manage. "Just hand it over, and you won't be sorry. I promise you, you won't be sorry."

  Trimble and Kenny felt as if they were moving through quicksand. The whole scene had a psychedelic quality. They were caught in a slow-motion horror film, red and green and silver Christmas decorations sliding past them in their peripheral vision.

  One step.

  Two steps.

  Trimble reached out. And suddenly he had the bomb in his two hands. He concentrated on standing upright and maintaining minimum movement. But then suddenly John Stickney fought back. He and Trimble fell to the floor, wrestling, the bomb between them. A few steps down the hall, Roger Irwin held his breath. Surely it was going to blow now and take all of them with it.

  But no. Stickney and Trimble were back on their feet, but now John Stickney was holding the bomb again. Suddenly, he turned away from the two officers and moved down the hallway, the bomb held tight against his stomach. David Trimble and Mike Kenny could see only his back.

  And then there was a roar the likes of which Irwin had never heard in his life. Smoke and dust obsc
ured his vision when he peered down the hall. He had a sense that the whole tower was coming apart at the seams. For the moment there was a floor beneath him, but surely it was going to crumble. Plaster and glass showered the whole area. Every window on the fifth floor was blown outward by the force of the blast. Four or five of the rooms closest to where John Stickney had stood forty-five seconds ago were simply gone.

  Down below, shivering in the frigid winter afternoon, the evacuated students heard the explosion and saw the tower vibrate. They began to scream and sob.

  Fighting his way through the debris, Roger Irwin fully expected to find his fellow officers dead. They could not have survived. They had been within ten feet of the blast. He braced himself for what he would find.

  John Stickney was dead. No one would ever know if he blew himself up deliberately or by accident. He would no longer suffer the anguish of unrequited love.