Read an Excerpt
At approximately 2:15 a.m. John Donnelly bolted from his sleep. He was certain he’d heard a noise. Less than ten seconds later he heard somebody pounding on the kitchen door of William’s house.
“Fire! Fire!” called a voice from outside in the darkness.
The pounding on the door resumed.
John reflexively was out of bed and on his feet. The calls came again, but this time from a different voice.
“Fire! Fire!”
“Open the door!”
The rapping on the door intensified. John decided to investigate the commotion, waking Martin Hogan as he jumped off the bed and walked across the bedroom floor of the guest room and through the door that led into William Donnelly’s bedroom. As it had been cold in the guest room, John still had his clothes on. His entry into the bedroom awakened his brother William, who now also heard the pounding on the door and sat up in his bed. As John walked into William’s room, he looked at his brother and asked, “Who’s hollering ‘fire’ and rapping at the door?” William watched as his brother turned to his right and opened the door that led into the kitchen.
Again, the voices came.
“Fire! Fire!”
“Will! Open the door!”
Having reached the kitchen door, John Donnelly now threw it open.
“Who’s there?” he asked.
In reply came a blast from a shotgun, augmented by the simultaneous discharge of a rifle. Thirty pieces of shot ripped through John’s upper torso, snapping ribs and shattering his collarbone in the process. The bullet from the rifle tore through his groin in an upward trajectory, ripping through his flesh front and back, and ultimately lodging itself in the window frame at the far end of the kitchen. The impact of the shots lifted John off his feet and sent him hurtling backwards several feet, where he hit the door frame to William and Nora’s room and then collapsed on his back, his head coming to rest against the door jam. A wad of paper from the shotgun blast slowly floated in from the open door and came to rest upon the kitchen floor. Everyone in the house was now awake.
“Oh, Will! Oh, Will! I’m shot!” John gasped. His breathing became laboured as he felt his life begin to ebb from his body. He then offered up a short and raspy prayer before the darkness descended upon him. “And may the Lord have mercy on my soul!”
Panic now spread amongst the occupants of the house.
“Martin! Get up!” he yelled. “John’s been shot!”
