Lying in Judgment, page 31
Her lips pressed against his before he could react. The taste of her lipstick lingered on his mouth. She grinned. “You do love me, don’t you Peter?”
Her eyes darkened into deep icy pools. She patted his shoulder. “Well, I really must go visit Delores. Why don’t you call me in, oh, say, half an hour and we can make some plans?”
“Plans?”
“For Kyle. Over dinner, perhaps? I understand there’s a nice Italian place out on Division Street.” His blood, already running cold, froze in his veins. “Oh, and to tide you over, I got you these.” She handed him a cellophane-wrapped package. He squeezed the package in his hand.
A bag of pistachios.
Moments later, the hospital doors closed behind her. A familiar tightness encased his stomach. Dinner with her, he could manage.
But he reminded himself: don’t drink the tea.
Epilogue
November 17, 9 p.m.—Six months earlier
Through the trees, amidst the tall grass past the brambles of blackberry and ivy, he sees them. Two gringos. The one he had meant to follow lies on the ground next to his car, what was once a shiny red Camaro. The other man wears a baseball hat and flannel shirt. He swings something at the other, hits him. A metal bar of some kind. He hits him again, and again. Mi Dios. He is beating the other gringo to pieces.
He checks the safety of his pistol, a .40 caliber S&W. He crosses himself and kneels in the damp underbrush. The man in the hat does not seem to know he is there, but there is no need to take foolish chances.
The gringo on the ground cries out in pain. The other man keeps beating him, sometimes cursing. More cries of pain. Another. Another. Still the man in the hat beats him. The beating is savage, relentless, almost too horrible to watch.
Almost. If it were any other gringo on the ground, he might intervene. But not for this man. This slime. This woman-stealing hibrido. Any beating he gets, he deserves. This and more.
Finally, the cries of pain cease. The man in the hat stops the beating. He stands over the body, shaking, crying. He chokes, trying not to vomit maybe. He stands there two, three minutes, bent over, and holds his stomach.
The man straightens and seems to pull himself together. He picks something up off of the ground—several things. Little things. Specks of white. The man takes a long look again at the body, the hated body, then returns to his truck. A silver Ford, much like the Mazda pickup stuck in the ditch not far from here. It will be a bitch to get out later.
The man in the hat reaches into the dead man’s car and pulls out a rag. He wipes the driver’s side, especially the door handle. He scuffs his feet on the ground in a wide path on the way back to his truck. He puts the things he picked up into his truck, then drives in reverse, fifty, a hundred feet. He gets out again, kicks gravel and mud in the path he just drove, back to where he had been parked before. Covering his tracks. The gringo does not want to be discovered.
Finally the man in the baseball hat drives away. If he stays on the main road, he will not notice the Mazda in the ditch. If he sees it, he might be back. Best to stay put for now.
A long time passes. Thirty minutes, an hour. The silver Ford pickup does not return.
He stands. The body lies motionless in the tall grass next to the red Camaro—the body of the gringo that tried to steal his woman. With luck he is dead. Or dead soon, after suffering long hours for his sins, his hubris.
He takes slow, deliberate steps toward the body. He watches for movement, for signs of life. The body lies still, like a corpse, but he cannot be sure.
As he walks, he wonders about the man who did this, about why he did it. Perhaps he, too, lost a woman to the gringo. When a man acts as a predator, stealing love and beauty from the arms of another man, one prize is never enough. He needs another, and another. He cannot stop stealing until he is dead.
He must be stopped.
He reaches the body. It lies flat on its back, bloodied and broken. Its hands cover its groin, protecting its sex organs, but the organs and the hands are smashed to a pulp. The body’s eyes are closed, its mouth open. He leans over the body to listen for breathing.
“Are you dead, gringo?” he asks. The body does not respond. He kicks it. It rolls partway onto its side. He kicks it harder, shoves it with his foot. The body shifts onto its side, then rests there. He can’t tell if it is breathing, does not want to touch it to check for a pulse. He waits.
He clutches the gun, wondering if it is needed. His palm is damp. The gun feels cold in his hand. Cold and strange.
He feels for warm breath coming from the man’s mouth. He can’t tell. He bends over closer to listen. He hears a choking, gagging sound. Still alive.
He aims the pistol and presses his finger against the safety. But it does not slide. After a moment, he takes his finger off the safety. No. No guns. He has a better plan.
He whirls and runs down the gravel road, reaches his truck in what seems like moments, though it is a few hundred yards away. He searches the cab behind the seat for the car jack kit. He panics when the black bar is missing, the one that would match the bar used by the man in the hat. He tugs at the jumper seat, tears it away from the wall of the cab. He is breathing harder now than when he ran. He searches the cavity behind the jumper seat—no luck. He crawls into the cramped cab so he can reach the jump seat on the other side. He pulls it forward. The bar tumbles to the floor. He grabs the bar in both hands, rests his head against it. Gracias, mi Dios. He waits there, catches his breath.
There is one more thing. He zips up his leather jacket and ties the white apron from Florentino’s around him. This could get messy, after all.
He walks back to the body. It takes time, but no matter. He has lots of time.
Not so the gringo. Minutes from now, he will die.
Thank You
Thank you for reading Lying in Judgment. If you enjoyed reading it, won’t you please take a moment to leave me a review at your favorite retailer? And please, tell your friends!
Thanks,
Gary Corbin
Book Review Cheat Sheet
(Adapted from the original created by author Traci Sanders)
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Acknowledgements
Lying in Judgment emerged as an idea for a novel over two decades ago, when a friend related his fascinating experience as a juror at a cocktail party. Since then, too many friends and family members to mention by name have also contributed ideas, feedback, critique and love. I thank you all.
But special thanks goes out to those whose support really pushed me when I needed it to get this story published. They include:
The North Bank Writers Group, whose chapter-by-chapter critiques made this story better on a weekly basis;
The Willamette Writers Group, the best bunch of writers around;
Steven Novak, for an awesome cover design;
Former Clatsop County prosecutor Kady Bourne, whose painstaking review ensured that I did not unknowingly run afoul of courtroom procedures;
Sheryl Dunn, whose advice on storytelling was invaluable;
Patricia and Donald Corbin, my mother and father, who made me love books, and who always encouraged my love of writing; and
Renee... for everything.
Book Club Discussion Questions
Characters
1. What do you think of Peter? Do you think of him as a murderer?
1a. (Spoiler alert) Did the ending alter your opinion of this?
2. Which of the jurors did you like? Which did you dislike? In each case, why?
3. What do you think happens between Peter and Christine after the end of the story?
4. Which of Peter’s parents do you think had a greater influence on him throughout this story, and why?
Scenes and plot
5. Which scene or scenes stood out to you? Why?
6. How do the scenes in the jury room compare to your own experience as a member of a jury?
7. Would you have preferred Peter to take a different approach toward the verdict in the case? Why or why not?
8. How effective is the author's use of plot twists and red herrings? Were you able to predict certain things before they happened, or did the author keep you guessing until the end of the story?
Personal connection
9. For the most part, what emotion(s) did the story evoke in you as a reader?
10. Did you identify with Peter? Any other character? How did that affect your enjoyment of the book?
11. Have you ever been in an analogous situation – secretly guilty of something and unable to confess, while someone else potentially takes the blame? How did you react? What was the end result of that situation?
Writing
12. Lying in Judgment “breaks the rules” in a number of ways for the mystery and legal thriller genres: the anti-hero protagonist, early revelation of “whodunit,” focusing on an “everyman” juror rather than lawyers and judges. Which of these devices works for you as a reader? Which don’t?
13. If you could change something about the book what would it be and why?
14. Describe what you liked or disliked about the writer’s style.
General
15. Name your favorite thing overall about the book.
16. Your least favorite?
17. At what point in the book did you decide if you liked it or not? What helped make this decision?
18. Are you interested in reading the sequel?
About Gary Corbin
Gary Corbin is a writer, actor, and playwright in Camas, WA, a suburb of Portland, OR. His creative and journalistic work has been published in BrainstormNW, the Portland Tribune, The Oregonian, and Global Envision, among others. His plays have enjoyed critical acclaim, and his acting ain’t bad, either.
Gary is a member of PDX Playwrights, the Portland Area Theater Alliance, the Willamette Writers Group and the North Bank Writers Workshop, and participates in workshops and conferences in the Portland, Oregon area.
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. And when that doesn’t work, he escapes to the Oregon coast with his sweetheart.
Connect with Gary Corbin
Keep up to date with the latest at www.garycorbinwriting.com.
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/@garycorbin
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Favorite me at Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/GaryCorbin
Also by Gary Corbin
Lying in Vengeance
Two months after serving on the jury trying a man for the murder that he committed, Peter Robertson’s worst nightmare comes to fruition: Christine, his beautiful and charming fellow juror, knows his dark secret and uses it to blackmail him.
The price of her secrecy: Peter must kill again, this time to stop Kyle, the man who torments Christine and threatens her very existence.
Their sizzling nascent romance gets interrupted when Kyle kidnaps her. Peter’s daring rescue provides him the opportunity to commit the awful deed. Peter refuses, however, only to discover that his best friend Frankie may have committed the act in his place. Or was he framed?
Peter’s relentless search for evidence to clear his lifelong pal forces him to confront his demons and risk his own freedom—and his life—as he battles the ruthless, manipulative, and resourceful woman who always seems one step ahead and knows his every move.
ISBN: 978-0-9974967-5-8
Available in hardcover, paperback, audiobook, and all eBook formats at garycorbinwriting.com, and at your favorite local retailers.
Read the free excerpt from Lying in Vengeance at the end of this book!
The Mountain Man Mysteries
The Mountain Man’s Dog
In the small town of Clarkesville, in the heart of the Oregon Cascade Mountains, Lehigh Carter, a humble forester, stumbles into the complex world of crooked cops and power-hungry politicians...all because he rescues a stray, injured dog on the highway.
The Mountain Man’s Dog is a briskly told crime thriller loaded with equal parts suspense, romance, and light-hearted humor, pitting honor and loyalty against ruthless ambition and runaway greed in a town too small for anyone to get away with anything.
ISBN: 978-0-9974967-1-0
Available in hardcover, paperback, audiobook, and all eBook formats at garycorbinwriting.com, and at your favorite local retailers.
The Mountain Man’s Bride
In this thrilling sequel to The Mountain Man’s Dog, the murder of popular Acting Sheriff Jared Barkley. The murder puts Lehigh and Stacy’s plans to marry on hold when Stacy is arrested for committing the crime.
But evidence of a secret affair makes even Lehigh wonder if he should fight for her freedom against the corrupt local machine that accused her.
ISBN: 978-0-9974967-3-4
Available in hardcover, paperback, audiobook, and all eBook formats at garycorbinwriting.com, and at your favorite local retailers.
The Mountain Man’s Badge
APPOINTED TO FILL OUT the unexpired term of disgraced sheriff Buck Summers, mountain man Lehigh Carter investigates the murder of sleazy businessman Everett Downey, murdered in a forested area frequented by off-season hunters and poachers.
As the evidence mounts, pointing to Stacy’s father, George McBride, Lehigh battles the mistrust of the entire sheriff’s department as well as the District Attorney, the County Commission Chair and his own wife—until he finds shocking evidence of the killer’s true identity.
ISBN: 978-0-9974967-7-2
Available in hardcover, paperback, and all eBook formats at garycorbinwriting.com, and at your favorite local retailers.
Valorie Dawes Thrillers
In Search of Valor
Valorie Dawes fights an international kidnapping syndicate on behalf of a new college friend—and harbors serious doubts about her future as a police officer.
At a young age, Valorie Dawes vowed to avenge the death of her uncle, a policeman killed in the line of duty, by following in his footsteps. During her first month at college, the mysterious disappearance of a close friend's child drags her into the role of crimefighter much earlier than planned.
But Val's initial attempts to help lead to mistrust and recrimination. Self-doubts escalate, not only about Val's future as a cop, but over her ability to make and sustain the trust of a friend.
Anxious to prove herself worthy on both counts, Val puts her own life on the line—and discovers that the kidnappers will stop at nothing to get rid of obstacles like her.
ISBN: 978-0-9974967-9-6
Available in hardcover, paperback, audiobook, and all eBook formats at garycorbinwriting.com, and at your favorite local retailers.
A Woman of Valor
A rookie policewoman, who had been molested as a young girl, pursues a serial child molester–and struggles to control the anger his misdeeds awake in her. Can Valorie overcome the trauma she suffered as a child and stop this dangerous criminal from hurting others like her—or will her bottled-up anger lead her to take reckless risks that put the people she loves in greater danger?
ISBN: 978-0-9974967-9-6
Available in hardcover, paperback, audiobook, and all eBook formats at garycorbinwriting.com, and at your favorite local retailers.
Read the free sample chapter at the end of this book!
A Better Part of Valor
When Valorie Dawes discovers the body of a young girl who had also been sexually molested, Lt. Gibson assigns her to assist the detectives investigating the case. Then Clayton Mayor Megan Iverson, candidate for governor of Connecticut, ties her political fortunes to the case, vaulting herself into the lead in all of the major polls with her law-and-order campaign.
Iverson’s meddling in the case costs them dearly when key evidence disappears and other evidence, withheld for strategic reasons, gets leaked to the press. The pressure intensifies when a former campaign aide, Val’s childhood friend Amy, becomes the next victim.
Can Val find and stop the killer before he strikes again?
