She turned and ran along the hall toward the rear entrance to the building. As she ran, she could see that Phil Haymes had locked the bolt on the big bronze back door. He was standing beside it, holding the long-handled fire ax he’d taken from the glass case in the hallway by the mayor’s office, where there was also an old reel of flat canvas fire hose. There was a loud sound of something hitting the door. It shook and showed a bit of warping, but it held.

As Leah approached, the door was hit again and opened. She could see that the men outside had hotwired a car in the lot and driven it against the door. The first one to slide in over the hood of the car was Tim McKinney.

Phil Haymes swung the ax with a level swing, and the blade caught McKinney just below the Adam’s apple. He was knocked backward, and then went to his knees, both hands clutching his neck. Leah could see there was blood. She fired Sergeant Tim Munson’s pistol once into his forehead, and he fell.

She edged past him to see outside, but the others were gone. She heard the scream of sirens coming from the direction of the Public Safety Building. “Take this.” She handed Phil Haymes the rifle. She ran back to the council chamber and stopped in front of the council members.

“What about the other three?” Dave Hall asked.

“I just heard sirens. We only had four men on duty tonight. Either they’ll catch the others, or they won’t.”

29

The four police officers who had been dispatched to pursue the three fleeing men had not found them. No description of the two cars was passed on to other law enforcement agencies.

Leah did not finish her supervision of the aftermath until 6:00 a.m. The coroner’s men removed the three escapees’ bodies and the body of Sergeant Tim Munson from city hall. A pickup fire crew helped mop the blood from the marble floors, scrubbed the spatter from several walls, spackled bullet holes, sanded them, and repainted or revarnished the surfaces. The rear door of the building had to be boarded up temporarily.

Mayor Donaldson told the cleanup crews that the six escapees had come to seek revenge for the deaths of prisoners during the battle of Main Street two years ago and that Sergeant Munson had shot three of them before succumbing to his wounds. The role of Lieutenant Hawkins in the fighting was barely mentioned.