Empty Promises

Smoke and dust obscured 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.
    At first glance, Irwin thought Mike Kenny and David Trimble were dead, too. They lay still, their uniforms ripped into strips and tatters, their skin blackened. Irwin shouted into his radio, asking for paramedics and an ambulance, although he had precious little hope that anyone could help his colleagues.
    As Irwin drew closer, he saw Kenny stir and heard Trimble moan. Miraculously, they were alive. John Stickney’s body had taken the full force of the blast, and that alone had saved them. Had he been facing toward them when the dynamite detonated, the cops would surely have died too.
    David Trimble, only twenty-six, was in critical condition. He had sustained puncture wounds in his chest, abdomen, and hands, and he had first- and second-degree burns all over his body. Both of his eardrums were ruptured. Mike Kenny had been a little farther away from the center of the blast, but his eardrums had been ruptured, too.
    An ambulance rushed Trimble to Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane where he underwent hours of surgery. Doctors stated cautiously that he would live but that his hearing would be permanently damaged. Lieutenant Kenny was treated at Pullman Memorial Hospital where physicians held out hope that his hearing would be only minimally affected. They were police officers and keen hearing is essential to their profession.

    The two officers had come very close to sacrificing their lives for the students of Perham Hall. It could have been so much worse. Only three students were injured, and their injuries were only minor cuts and shock.
    Leigh Hayden’s new boyfriend hadn’t been too concerned when he received threats from John Stickney, but now police checked his car carefully to be sure there wasn’t a bomb hidden there. They found nothing. Nor was there a bomb in John Stickney’s car. He had carried only the one bomb with him. Perhaps he had hoped that Leigh would agree to go for a ride with him. If she said she still loved him, the bomb would have stayed in the book bag. If she truly said it was the end for them, then he could have set off the bomb and they would have died together.
    But in the end, nothing had worked for John and he had died alone.

    Campus cops are often derided by students who delight in calling them pigs, but the students of Washington State University realized that Mike Kenny, Roger Irwin, and David Trimble had risked their lives to save them.
    To show their appreciation, the residents of Streit-Perham immediately established a fund to help the families of Lieutenant Kenny and Officer Trimble. They started the fund by donating the money they had allocated for their social functions for the school year, and then solicited funds from other students and Pullman townspeople. It would be a bleak Christmas for the injured policemen, but the students were determined to do what they could to help.
    In the meantime, sororities, fraternities, and the citizens of Pullman rushed to help the forty-six students who had lost all their clothing, books, and possessions when the fifth floor was leveled. University insurance eventually reimbursed them for some of their losses. As for the dormitory itself, a policy was in place that covered explosions. It had a $10,000 deductible but that was a bargain, considering the awesome damage John Stickney’s bomb had done.
    Back on Mercer Island, John Stickney’s boss and his fellow workers were “absolutely flabbergasted” when they learned of the tragedy. “We’re almost speechless here,” his boss said.