by Anne Emery
Concluding Paragraph of the Decision of the Court of Appeal:
“We accept the judge’s finding that the parish secretary correctly identified the appellant Brennan Burke on the February 27 visit to the presbytery. The finding that she recognized the appellant as the man who came up from the cellar with a gun on March 7, however, is not sustainable. The man’s face was mostly covered, and the lighting was poor. The man with the gun had no particular accent that she noted. Appellant’s counsel made the point that this suggested a man from Belfast, who would sound similar to Mrs. McNally. The appellant on the other hand is originally from Dublin and has spent his adult life in America and Canada. There is no question that his actions on February 27 were peculiar, and that they give rise to suspicion. But suspicion is not enough to support a conviction. The standard of proof is reasonable doubt. There is a reasonable doubt that the appellant was involved in what happened on the 7th of March, 1995. With the identity of the gunman not established, there is no evidence of the appellant possessing a gun, making a threat, or causing damage. Those charges are not made out. As stated above, there are suspicions that he was part of a conspiracy to obstruct justice with respect to the murder of Francis O’Dwyer in November 1992, but not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The appeal is allowed.”
About the Author
Anne Emery is a lawyer and the author of the Collins-Burke mystery series, set in Halifax, Cape Breton, Ireland, London, and New York. She has won two Arthur Ellis Awards, an Independent Publisher Book Awards silver medal, and the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction.
Copyright
Copyright © Anne Emery, 2020
Published by ECW Press
665 Gerrard Street East, Toronto, ON M4M 1Y2
416-694-3348 / [email protected]
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise — without the prior written permission of the copyright owners and ECW Press. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover and text design: Tania Craan
Cover image: © Mick Quinn/mqphoto.com
Author photo: © Mick Quinn/mqphoto.com
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Though the heavens fall : a Collins-Burke mystery / Anne Emery.
Names: Emery, Anne, author
Series: Emery, Anne. Collins-Burke mystery series.
Description: Series statement: The Collins-Burke mystery series | Reprint. Previously published: Toronto, ON: ECW Press, 2018.
Identifiers: Canadiana 2019019667X
ISBN 978-1-77041-529-4 (softcover)
ISBN 978-1-77041-386-3 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-77305-236-6 (PDF)
ISBN 978-1-77305-235-9 (ePUB)
Classification: LCC PS8609.M47 T57 2018 | DDC C813/.6—dc23
The publication of Though the Heavens Fall has been generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country and is funded in part by the Government of Canada. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays. Ce livre est financé en partie par le gouvernement du Canada. We acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council (OAC), an agency of the Government of Ontario, which last year funded 1,737 individual artists and 1,095 organizations in 223 communities across Ontario for a total of $52.1 million. We also acknowledge the contribution of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit, and through Ontario Creates for the marketing of this book.