We are delighted to welcome back author Gary Corbin to Omnimystery News.
Earlier this week we talked with Gary about his new courtroom thriller Lying in Judgment (Double Diamond Publishing; March 2016 hardcover, trade paperback and ebook formats) and today he's provided us with an excerpt from it, the second chapter — the murder scene.
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GREEN DIGITS ON THE DASHBOARD OF Peter's pickup changed to 8:45. Across the busy four-lane street, the man and woman in Florentino's Italian Ristorante finished their wine in simultaneous gulps. Neither the distance nor the restaurant's romantic lighting could hide the man's bronze tan despite six solid weeks of autumn rain. Ruggedly handsome, athletic, and clean-shaven, his curly brown hair suffered no thin or balding spots.
Just like her portraits of the son of a bitch.
He adjusted the baseball cap covering his own thinning scalp and blew warmth onto his hands. So, this is the guy. After nearly three months of doubt — the increasing frequency of her late nights at the office, a sudden interest in wearing the latest fashions, hurried hang-ups when he happened into the room — suspicion morphed into unwelcome reality.
Dammit. He'd wanted to be wrong about this. He popped a shelled pistachio nut into his mouth and sucked the salt from it. He chewed it, but found it hard to swallow. He cracked another one open and waited. It all could be very innocent.
Marcia sat opposite this stranger. She reached across the table to touch his arm. Peter looked away. The pistachio caught in his throat.
She was so tender with him … like she used to be with Peter. Like she was with everyone else but him now. Early in her career, as a dental hygienist, her soft hands and gentle touch had made her a favorite among her patients, particularly her male patients. She only cleaned their teeth, he reminded himself a hundred times. Still, the idea of her hands on another man drove Peter crazy.
Especially, now, this man. He gripped the steering wheel with both hands to steady his trembling fingers.
It was his own damned fault, really. Too much focus on his work, too little on surprising her with flowers or a pair of earrings. A lack of attention to his own appearance. Hours on end in the woodshop, twiddling with time-draining projects — time he could have spent with her. Having dinner out, for example, in a place like Florentino's, where wait staff in white shirts and black ties opened bottles of wine for well-dressed customers at tables covered in white linen.
She didn't used to go for such fancy places. When they first met, she loved to stroll with him in an isolated meadow for a picnic of fresh fruit, soft bread and hard cheese. Simple pleasures sufficed then, before careers, mortgages, and car payments took over their lives.
Time to get all of that out of the way. To win her back from job titles and art classes. To keep her — if it wasn't already too late. If she hadn't already decided to throw away eight years of marriage for a guy with a unibrow.
Marcia touched the chin of her friend — yes, friend, so far as he knew, still only friends — and turned his head, as if posing him for one of her drawings. She held it there a moment while talking to him. Okay, fine. They were just out to talk about art. His suspicions felt foolish. He should go. He reached for the ignition.
Her hand slid toward the man's lips. He kissed her hand. Her head drew back, as if in a heavy sigh. His lips closed around her finger …
"You bastards." Never mind what brought him here — he no longer wanted proof of her cheating ways. Instead he wanted to pound on something. He chose the steering wheel. It didn't satisfy, so he smacked it again. Still not enough. Nothing was.
She pulled her hand away from the man's pock-marked face and said something. Probably a lie. The man smiled, the idiotic grin of a man with only one thing on his mind. He nodded and waved a credit card above his head, like those stupid college boys who wave twenties at bartenders to impress pretty girls. Marcia pulled a dressy jacket over her thin shoulders — an expensive one she hadn't worn in months — and exited the restaurant. Her slimeball date waited a half-minute — for appearances, no doubt — then donned his full-length coat and headed for the door. This could signal the end of their evening … or more to come.
Only one way to know: Follow them.
He dreaded what he'd find, and had no idea what he'd do once they reached their destination — probably some cheap, pay-by-the-hour motel.
They would probably drive separately, too. Best to follow Mr. Unibrow. Peter always knew where to find Marcia. By morning, anyway.
The man walked around the side of the restaurant to the parking lot in the rear. Peter started his truck, but kept the lights off. After a few minutes, her charcoal Ford Explorer turned left into traffic. Several seconds later, a red Camaro followed her out of the lot. Figures she'd go for somebody who wore his cock on his keychain.
He turned on his lights and pulled into traffic behind the Camaro. He remained a few cars back, discreet, confident he would not lose the bright red muscle car. Its superior speed wouldn't help much on this road. Plus, his pickup had six cylinders. He'd keep up.
Marcia was long gone. No matter. He could catch up to her soon enough.
They drove for fifteen minutes, past one-story strip malls crammed with Mexican restaurants and Asian nail salons, discount gas stations, smoky bars offering video poker and cheap beer, and "lingerie" shops offering rental companionship. The Camaro held a steady speed, passed only the slowest of drivers and rarely changed lanes. Even though he wore no jacket, sweat collected on Peter's scalp and collar. He kept his distance. His hands slipped on the wheel a few times. Wiping them on his pants didn't help.
At the edge of town, he got stuck behind two cars driving below the speed limit, and the Camaro pulled away. He tailgated the car on the left to encourage the driver to speed up. Still it took thirty eternal seconds, six slaps to the dashboard, and four thumps on the steering wheel to get past the slowpokes. He braked a moment later when a Subaru cut into the left lane, also below the speed limit. He smacked his horn, earned a one-finger salute in response, returned it. The Camaro gained another few hundred yards.
The driver turned right on Old Fairview Road. Strange. There's no motel that way... ah. "They must be meeting at his place," he said. "Or at a friend's."
Or, goddammit, at their regular place.
His heart sagged into his stomach. Hold tight, cowboy. Don't assume. Just follow.
The Camaro zoomed ahead on the winding, unlit road, barely two cars wide with no centerline and not much shoulder. Thick patches of fog seeped over the drainage ditch from the firs and pines on either side of the road. He leaned forward and focused on the fading taillights. If he lost the guy on this road, he'd never find him.
The road's sharp curves slowed their pace, and he closed the gap again. Soon the road turned to gravel. The Camaro's dust dropped visibility to almost zero. Peter coughed, rubbed his watering eyes, wanted to spit. He kept his distance and turned off his headlights. The Camaro's taillights, like the seductive eyes of Bathsheba, beckoned him onward.
They passed a state park turnoff on the right and drove another half-mile. The Camaro turned left on a fork about fifty yards ahead, and he lost sight of him. "Dammit!" He stomped on the gas pedal —
The driver's side of the red Camaro filled his view, with no time to react. Metal crunched. Glass cracked. Peter's head slammed onto the back of his hand gripping the steering wheel. The cab of the truck spun around him, blurry. Air bags slammed him back into his seat. Something clattered like machine gun fire against the undercarriage. Rocks, maybe. Or gravel.
The air bags deflated and his vision cleared. His calf spasmed — his foot still jammed the accelerator to the floor. He smashed it onto the brake. A wall of red careened away from his windshield — the Camaro, half-rolling, half-sliding backwards across the gravel. The back end disappeared and the front end tipped skyward, wheels still spinning like crazed dervishes. Steam sprayed from the Camaro's front hood.
Peter closed his eyes to stop the world from whirling around him. He leaned back in his seat, resting his head against the cushion. By feel, he turned off the ignition. The effort shot pain up his arms. He turned his head left to right, checking for soreness in his neck or back, but found none. Good — at least he hadn't gotten whiplash. Maybe.
Footsteps crunched in gravel. He blinked open his eyes. The driver of the Camaro appeared through the windshield, carrying something in his right hand — a rod or bar of some kind. The man's face contorted into a snarl, his thick eyebrows arched inwards, nose flared. He raised the bar over his head and swung downward — crack! — onto the hood of Peter's truck.
"What the —?" Peter unbuckled his seat belt. A second crack! sounded on the hood, followed by the tinkling of broken glass. "Hey!" Peter yelled. "You son of a bitch. Did you just bust my —"
Crack! Another dent in the hood. The man's face transformed into a grim smile. He drew his arm back again.
Peter reached behind his truck seat and yanked the tire iron from the kit secured in its compartment. He kicked open the driver's side door and jumped out. After an unsteady moment, he righted himself.
A shiny metallic object arched toward his face. He swung the tire iron upward, and metal clanged metal. Peter's hand stung and he nearly dropped the black bar. The stranger attacked again. Peter blocked the savage blow with another quick reaction, then jabbed the chiseled end of his tire iron into the other man's startled face. Blood poured out of the man's nose and onto his lips. Still the man charged again, the black rod racing for purchase on Peter's skull.
This time Peter aimed a more strategic defensive blow, a quick slap of his bar across the invading forearm. The attacker's tire iron rattled to the ground and the man howled in obvious pain. But a moment later he bent over and reached with his good hand for the weapon.
Peter's foot shot upward into the man's face, knocking him backward. The man screamed, rolled on the ground, then scampered back toward his car.
Peter followed him. The punk had slept with his wife, smashed his truck, then attacked him with a god damned tire iron. Now he'd pay. He caught up to him at the edge of the ditch and kicked him karate-style across the back. The man landed on the Camaro's windshield. Peter swung at him with the tire iron, just missing his head by an inch. Cracks spiderwebbed across the glass. The man rolled across the car's hood and dove inside the open passenger side door, pulling it shut behind him.
Peter's breath grew ragged. He lifted the bar above his head and let fly with another blow to the windshield.
Then, blackness.
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Photo provided courtesy of
Gary Corbin
Gary Corbin is a writer, actor, and playwright in Camas, WA, a suburb of Portland, OR. In addition to writing and editing for private sector, government, individuals, and not-for-profit clients, his creative and journalistic work has been published in BrainstormNW, the Portland Tribune, The Oregonian, and Global Envision, among others. A homebrewer as well as a maker of wine, mead, cider, and soft drinks, Gary is a member of the Oregon Brew Crew and a BJCP National Beer Judge. He loves to ski, cook, and garden, and hopes someday to train his dogs to obey.
For more information about the author, please visit his website at GaryCorbinWriting.com and his author page on Goodreads, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.
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Lying in Judgment by Gary Corbin
A Courtroom Thriller
Publisher: Double Diamond Publishing
Peter Robertson, 33, discovers his wife is cheating on him. Following her suspected boyfriend one night, he erupts into a rage, beats him and leaves him to die … or so he thought. Soon he discovers that he has killed the wrong man — a perfect stranger. Six months later, impaneled on a jury, he realizes that the murder being tried is the one he committed. After wrestling with his conscience, he works hard to convince the jury to acquit the accused man. But the prosecution's case is strong as the accused man had both motive and opportunity to commit the murder.
The pressure builds, and Peter begins to slip up, revealing things that only the murderer would know — and Christine, a pretty and intelligent alternate juror, suspects something is amiss. Meanwhile, Peter's wife leaves him, his mother suffers a series of debilitating strokes, and his best friend and employee, accused of sexual harassment, needs Peter's help that he's too preoccupied to give. As jurors one by one declare their intention to convict, Peter's conscience eats away at him and he careens toward nervous breakdown.
— Lying in Judgment by Gary Corbin. Click here to take a Look Inside the book.
