Amber Morn (12 page)

“He was
twenty-six years old
.”

“Yeah? If you’re so worried about him, why aren’t you worried about a kid who’s only
eighteen
in prison with a bunch of grown
men
? A kid who’s found guilty of murder, when he’s
innocent
? And now he’s been
beat up
.”

Wicksell
. The name suddenly triggered. That awful murder case in Hayden…
This
was the family of that cold-blooded killer.

Dear Lord, help us all.

Bailey forced herself not to look away. “Yes. That would worry me.”

“Then
be
worried.” Vindictiveness twisted Kent’s mouth. “We chose Kanner Lake because of
you
, you know.”

Because of me?
Bailey stared him, coldness seeping through her body.

“That’s right. When we heard about T.J. getting beat up, that was it. Mr. Smart One over there” — he pointed at Brad, tone tinged with sarcasm — “says he’s got an idea. Takes me down to the library so we can read your… posts — ain’t that what you call ’em? There was one said you’d be having a party today ‘cause of the writer.” He threw a look at S-Man. “Even gave us the time. Seven thirty.”

Bailey’s veins iced over. For a moment she couldn’t speak. “You planned this — today — because you
knew
we’d all be here?”

“Yup.”

Bailey’s hands tightened in her lap.
Frank
. His body crumpling. The way he’d been dragged like some sack across the café, shoved out the door. And
she
was to blame? The thought turned her heart inside out. Now others might die. Who would be next? Pastor Hank? Jared? Carla?

Brittany or Ali?

Bailey slumped away from Kent Wicksell and covered her eyes with one hand. Hot tears began to fall.

“Don’t listen to him, Bailey.” Leslie’s voice trembled with anger. “This is nobody’s fault but theirs.”

“Oh, Know-It-All Reporter finally speaks up.” Kent’s chair squeaked. “And I’ll just bet you know everything about my son’s case too, don’t you? Musta wrote a hundred articles about how
guilty
he is.”

“I don’t give my opinion in the news; I just report it.”

“Yeah? And what did you ‘report’?”

“What I saw in the courtroom.”

“Which means the same lies everybody else heard.” Kent shoved to his feet. “T.J.
didn’t
kill that girl. Your favorite cop Vince Edwards gets him out of prison, you all get to go home. If he don’t… too bad for you.”

“If that’s —”

“Shut
up
!” Kent jerked his gun from the floor, strode two steps to Leslie and shook her chair furiously with one hand. “Turn back around! I don’t need any lip from you.”

Leslie melted into Ted. He put an arm around her shoulders.

Bailey hitched a breath. Her tears wouldn’t stop.

Kent clomped back to his chair and sat down hard. Set his gun on the floor. “
Where
is that stupid cop?” He grabbed the mouse, started clicking.

“He’s making us wait.” Mitch was back to pacing. “Thinks if he takes too long answering, you’ll get tired and say okay to a telephone.”

“Shut up your cryin’!” Kent slapped the table. Bailey jumped, fought to stifle her tears. Pulled in a long, stuttering breath and sat up.

Kent clicked on the comments box. “There! Finally.”

Bailey focused her burning eyes on the screen.

>> What’s going on here? Kent and Vince, you two lost or something? — Fred Meyer

Kent read it aloud and cursed. “It’s not even him.”

“Bet it is.” Brad pushed off Wilbur’s stool and stood. His gun aimed straight at Pastor Hank. “Posing as someone else to prove his point about interruptions.”

“I’ll handle this, Brad.
Back
off!” Kent glared at the monitor, his broad chest expanding as he breathed.

“Type this — no, wait.” He leaned back to gaze at the tables of hostages. “Any other good typists in here — raise your hand.”

Jared, Bev, Angie, Hank, Leslie, Ted, and Carla raised their hands.

“Well, now, that’s quite a bunch.” Kent focused on Bailey. “Evidently you’re replaceable. So here’s the deal, now that five minutes is up.
You
talk to Edwards. Tell him I’ve got T.J.’s story written out for you to post.” He patted the left pocket of his jacket. “Tell him I want the world to see it.
That’s
why we keep using this blog. Edwards answers right quick and agrees — you get to live. He don’t — I got plenty more typists.”

He leaned back, folded his arms. “If I were you, I’d make it good.”

THIRTY

Spokane Review
, April 13, 2008

ONE CRIME, TWO CONVICTIONS

By Robert Maxey

By mere appearance, no one would think of eighteen-year-old T.J. Wicksell as violent. His short blond hair — “My parents don’t like hippies,” he’s quoted as saying — frames rounded cheeks dusted with freckles and a large mouth with an easy smile. T.J. stands only five-foot-seven, with a slight build. With his light features, he looks nothing like his brown-haired, dark-eyed father, Kent Wicksell, fifty-two. He favors his mother, Lenora Wicksell. Like her, he has a friendly face. A face you can trust, one might think. In fact, many people have. Friends and teachers alike are apt to mention T.J.’s “charm.” How he could talk to anybody.

But appearance can be misleading. In the last few weeks the world has learned the truth about T.J. Wicksell: he is a cold-blooded, sociopathic killer.

Testimony in his trial, which ended Friday, laid out the grim details. In late afternoon on Saturday, October 13, 2007, T.J. drove his beat-up Chevy down Highway 95 into Hayden. The Wicksells live on a five-acre parcel cut from the forest to the east of 95, four miles north of town. The drive was typical for T.J., who often made the trip to the convenience store at the edge of Hayden city limits.

“He’d be in here two, maybe three times a week,” store owner Ralph Kranck said. “Buying milk, bread, things like that. He’d always talk to me and anybody else in the store. Made me laugh. I always thought he was such a nice kid.”

Which is why Kranck thought nothing of the conversation T.J. struck up with Marya Whitbey the first time he saw her in the store. As well as Kranck can remember, it was June or July. Marya was another regular customer, a well-liked twenty-three-year-old single mother with a little girl named Keisha, eighteen months. Marya, with bitter childhood memories of moving from foster home to foster home, was known in the community for her determination to better her life — for herself and her child. She’d been on her own since graduating high school, going to work in a bank and saving her money for future nursing school. Neighbors and friends considered her a “wonderful” mother, attentive and patient with her highly active daughter. Kranck had privately thought she’d be a good match for his son — if he could ever “get the kid back home to Hayden for a look at her.”

As Kranck recalls, T.J. first asked Marya how old her daughter was. He teased with the little girl, who giggled at his tickling fingers and peeked out at him from behind her mother’s legs. T.J. then asked Marya’s name… where she worked… did she come to the store often? Funny, he said, how he’d never seen her before. Marya answered his questions, mentioning she’d walked from her apartment just a few blocks down. She asked him about his family, what he did. “I work at my dad’s auto wreckage place,” he told her. “Up the highway. You need any car part, come see us.”

“Wish I could, but I don’t have a car. Someday.”

After that, Kranck says, T.J. and Marya spoke whenever they met in the store. Sometimes when she wasn’t there, T.J. would ask if Kranck had seen her. “I got the feeling he liked her, but he was never pushy with her or anything like that,” Kranck noted. “I never saw the slightest reason for concern.”

On that fateful day in October, T.J. and Marya ran into each other once again. They talked, and T.J. teased with Keisha until Marya said she needed to finish her shopping. She ended up with a heavier bag than usual since she’d bought a gallon of milk. T.J. picked up some lasagna noodles and sauce.

Kranck checked Marya out first, then T.J. It was nippy outside.

“Let me drive you home,” T.J. offered. “It’s too cold, and you have a heavy bag plus Keisha.”

Marya looked to Kranck, as if questioning whether she should. He nodded. “Let T.J. take you. He’s right; it’s cold.”

During the trial, when Kranck testified regarding his statement, his voice caught. A moment passed before he could go on.

“I’ll regret those words till the day I die,” he told the court.

Kranck watched them leave. T.J. was a gentleman, carrying Marya’s bag and opening his passenger door for her. She held Keisha in her lap.

That was the last time Kranck would see Marya.

What happened next is now public record. But while the facts are known, understanding is still slow to come for many. T.J. was an easygoing young man with no priors, although he’d been in numerous fights at school when he was younger. Kranck saw nothing in his behavior that day to cause concern. Yet T.J. Wicksell took Marya Whitbey the few blocks to her apartment, drove away, then soon returned. When she let him in, he stabbed her sixteen times and left her eighteen-month-old daughter to toddle through her blood. The body was discovered an hour later by neighbors alerted by the little girl’s cries.

Only after that gruesome discovery would Fred Banst, a car mechanic who lives in the building, realize he should have listened to his gut instincts when he saw a young man running out the front door of the building and down the driveway toward the back parking lot. Charles Griffin, a retiree in his seventies, pulled into a parking space next to T.J.’s Chevy just in time to get a look at T.J. as he jumped into the car. Griffin saw what appeared to be blood smears on the front of T.J.’s shirt. After Marya’s body was discovered, Griffin and Banst gave descriptions of the running young man to the police, and a composite was drawn of the suspect. That drawing was a ringer for T.J.’s “friendly” face.

The knife left at the scene, taken from Marya’s own kitchen, bore T.J.’s fingerprints.

Friday’s conviction of second-degree murder for T.J. Wicksell came as no surprise to those who followed the case. Although the exact motive for the crime remains unknown, the prosecutor presented the likelihood that T.J. had made sexual advances that were rebuffed. But his family’s conviction is far different. They still insist he’s innocent. Socio-path? They scoff at the word.

Spokane psychiatrist Dr. Patrick Johnson notes that while sociopaths may appear charming, they typically have a difficult time sustaining relationships and show no remorse for their actions. Some can be aggressive, even hostile. Yet only a small percentage fall into violent, criminal behavior. On the surface, they can seem quite trustworthy and are often good conversationalists. In short, they can fool many.

In recent criminal history, the name Scott Peterson comes to mind.

Like Peterson’s parents, who to this day declare Scott’s innocence, T.J. Wicksell’s father insists he could “never do what the prosecutor said he did.” The rest of the family fervently agrees. The system set up T.J., they say.

“I’ve been protecting T.J. since he was four years old and got beat up by a bigger kid,” his older brother Brad told reporters during the trial. “I taught him how to fight back. Other than protecting himself, he’s never hurt anybody.”

“A week ago Brad said we’ve protected T.J. since he was young,” a red-eyed but defiant Kent Wicksell said on the steps of the courthouse after the verdict. “We ain’t done yet. T.J.’s innocent, and we’re going to make the world hear that. Hear me, out there? He
didn’t do it.
We’ll show everybody that — if it’s the last thing we do.”

“How can parents,” prosecutor Mick Wiley wondered aloud, “be so clouded in their vision of the truth?”

Indeed, that is the question many are asking. And it is a question for society at large. We are left to wonder — if family members could spot sociopathic tendencies early on, could such later violent acts be avoided?

Dr. Johnson points out that the most charming of socio-paths often fool their families even after they explode in violence. “When outward behavior masks this personality defect, those closest to the subject simply cannot see what is there. Day to day these people see only what the subject wants them to see. It will take a high degree of evidence to change their thinking.” Beyond those factors, he added, “We have to recognize the close ties between parent and child. Whereas someone outside the family may be able to decipher facts more objectively, a father or mother — or even sibling — cannot so easily be objective. Familial love clouds many a rational mind.”

A teary-eyed T.J. Wick-sell was escorted in handcuffs from the courtroom to begin his sentence of twenty-five years in prison. His family, shaken and despairing, drove off to their own lifelong sentence — believing in an innocence that never was.

THIRTY-ONE

“We’ll show everybody that — if it’s the last thing we do…”

Vince set the article on his desk.