man fell back against the wall as the third man turned and fled, still yelling as he ran down the hall, spraying the walls with bullets.
She heard the clinic’s back door slam and tires blow gravel through the parking lot. Josie leaped from her crouched position on the floor, yelling at the injured man to drop his weapon. He leaned against the wall, holding the other hand over the bleeding wound, the automatic rifle at his feet.
Josie pushed him to the floor, kneeled on his back. He cried out in pain as she pulled his arms back and snapped handcuffs on him. Stepping into the hallway, she pushed at the gunman lying on his back on the floor. From the chest wound, she was certain he was dead. She put her backup weapon inside the concealed holster under her shirt and carried his AK-47 with her. Otto ran down the hallway to the back entrance as Josie stood, leaving the wounded man moaning on the floor. The two nurses and doctor stared up at her from the floor.
“Anyone hit?” she asked them.
They began to pull themselves up into sitting positions, still too shocked to know if they were hurt. They all appeared fine to her, and she told them to stay down. She glanced at Medrano on the operating table. He was no longer recognizable.
With her back pressed against the wall in the hallway, she moved quickly toward the rear entrance. Otto rushed back inside, sweat dripping down his face, his coloring so red, she worried he might be having a heart attack.
“It’s clear. No one back there, no cars or people in the parking lot or in the yards across the street.”
“You okay?” Josie asked. Her voice echoed in her head as if in a box, and the smell of gunpowder burnt her nose.
Otto wiped the sweat off his forehead with his shirt sleeve. “Jesus, I thought you were all dead. The staff okay?”
“They got the patient. That’s it.”
The two stood in the silence of the hallway, ears still ringing in pain from the gunfire.
* * *
Eight hours later, Josie sat in the mayor’s office, along with Moss and Sheriff Roy Martínez. Moss had requested a debriefing to discuss the shooting. His office was located in the Artemis City Building, which was connected to the left side of the police department in downtown Artemis. The mayor’s office was located in the back of the long, narrow building, and was walled in brown 1970s-style wood paneling and beige shag carpeting. The conference table, large enough for eight people to sit around, dominated the office. A mahogany desk the size of a twin bed took up the space in the back. Josie could smell the cigar smoke on Moss’s clothing from across the table as he plugged a laptop cord into a wall socket.
Built like a linebacker, with wide shoulders and a squat stance, the mayor held himself in great esteem and was not shy about sharing that opinion with anyone who would listen. Three years ago, when Josie applied for the position of chief of police, she had the support of the city council, the other officers in the department, and Sheriff Martínez. Moss was the hold-up. He had told her to take her name out of the running, that she did not belong, that she was not strong enough mentally or physically for the rigors of the job. It wasn’t personal, he said, but women were not “built” for police work. She had ignored his demand and was appointed shortly thereafter. Josie had never learned who put the political pressure on Moss to hire her, but she knew he resented her presence and would relish her dismissal.
Josie connected her digital camera to the mayor’s laptop, downloaded the images, and clicked through the set as she provided a description of the pictures she had taken, inside and out at the Trauma Center, as the Artemis PD and Texas Department of Public Safety officers processed the crime scene. She explained that she had hit one of the gunmen in the chest and he had died at the scene.
Moss interrupted her. “That is not good. Not good at all.” His eyebrows furrowed, and he stared hard at Josie.
She ignored the comment and pointed to a picture of the gunman she had shot in the arm being loaded into an ambulance. “The Arroyo County Sheriff’s Department took this man, the second gunman, into custody and transported him to the Arroyo County Hospital. The