Before She Dies

Posadas County, New Mexico, Undersheriff Bill Gastner might be right: he should have stayed home. It has been an otherwise rotten evening, but when Sonny Trujillo jerks the revolver from Gastner's holster and rams it into his face, the undersheriff thinks at lease the evening has sunk to its lowest low. No such luck. Newspaper reporter Linda Real is on hand to record the incident for the front page of the Posadas Register. Later that evening, the young assailant Trujillo dies in the Posadas County lock-up, choking to death on his own vomit, and Gastner sees accusations of police brutality hanging over his future. To make matters worse, the daughter of the county's Republican Party chairman has been brought in on charges of assault and driving while intoxicated. Then as a cap to the weekend's events, Gastner is called in to investigate the apparently senseless shooting of a Posadas County deputy. There is a sole witness to the killing. The ambitious young reporter Linda Real had been sitting in the passenger seat next to the deputy. She now lies in a coma at Posadas General Hospital. It all adds up to a whole barrel full of real trouble for sleep-deprived Bill Gastner, who must try and fight his way out of it.