The Gospel of Detective Corbin by Alona Yakovenko

“Cut the script. Let’s tell them what actually happened.”

Detective Miles Corbin tossed the glossy press kit onto his cluttered desk. The cover featured a beatific, airbrushed photo of the deceased, Joshua “J.C.” Elias, under the grandiloquent headline: TRUTH MEDIA MOURNS A VISIONARY. The official story being spun by the network’s PR department was a tragedy, a robbery gone wrong. It was clean, simple, and a complete fabrication.

The truth began, as it so often does, in the dark, with a body. J.C.’s office was on the top floor of the TRUTH Tower, a glass and steel spire that pierced the city’s skyline. The staff called the executive suite the “Upper Room,” an irony that wasn't lost on Corbin. It was less of an office and more of a temple to modern media, with panoramic windows displaying the sprawling city like a congregation of lights.

J.C. was found slumped over a massive oak table, a single, deep puncture wound in his side. There was no sign of struggle. A half-empty glass of wine sat near his hand. The scene was eerily serene, staged. The murder weapon was missing, but forensics found microscopic polymer residue — untraceable, likely 3D-printed. A professional job. Or a deeply personal one.

Our first and most obvious suspect was Jude Carrick, the Chief Financial Officer of TRUTH Media. He and J.C. had been friends since they built the company from a public-access channel into a global powerhouse. But everyone knew their friendship was fraught. Jude was a man who lived in the shadow of J.C.’s blinding charisma, and it showed.

When we brought him in, Jude was a wreck. His hands trembled, and a sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead. “I loved him,” he kept repeating, the words sounding hollow even to his own ears. “He was my friend.”

His alibi was tissue-thin. He’d left the office party early, claiming he needed to “walk and clear his head.” Financial records showed a more compelling story. Thirty minutes after the estimated time of death, Jude had authorized a wire transfer from a company holding account to a private, encrypted wallet. The amount? Thirty thousand dollars. It wasn’t silver, but in the digital age, it was just as damning.

“It’s not what it looks like,” Jude stammered. “J.C. knew I was in trouble. He was helping me cover a debt. He told me to make the transfer.”

“So the visionary director of a company called TRUTH told you to embezzle funds?” Corbin asked, his voice flat. Jude had no answer. He looked guilty as sin, a man caught with his hand in the world’s most conspicuous cookie jar. The media ate it up. The case seemed closed before it had properly opened.

But something felt wrong. It was too neat, too scripted. Corbin kept re-reading the statement from Maryam Hadi, the Head of Programming and J.C.’s closest confidante. She was sharp, composed even in her grief, and had painted a picture of a man who was anything but a simple victim.

“Joshua knew things,” she’d said, her gaze distant. “He knew Jude was weak, that his greed was a sickness. But he also believed in redemption.” She spoke of J.C.’s final project, a sweeping, investigative documentary codenamed ‘New Covenant.’ It was an exposé that targeted a shadowy consortium of data brokers and corrupt politicians. “He said it was the only way to cleanse the temple,” Maryam recalled. “Even if it meant tearing the whole thing down.”

Tearing it down would have meant financial ruin. The consortium J.C. was targeting was secretly a major investor in TRUTH Media’s parent company. The broadcast would have saved the network’s soul by bankrupting it.

Corbin turned his attention to the company’s inner circle, the "apostles" of the network. His gaze fell on Simon Peterson, the Third Vice President of Operations. Peterson was known as J.C.’s ‘Rock.’ He was a loud, passionate man whose loyalty was legendary. In the press, he was the most vocal about his grief, his booming voice demanding justice for his fallen mentor.

Corbin decided to review the building’s security logs again, cross-referencing Peterson’s access card swipes with CCTV footage from the night of the murder. The official record showed Peterson had left hours before J.C. was killed. But Corbin, an old-school detective in a new-school world, went to the source: the night-shift security guards.

The first guard, stationed in the main lobby, confirmed seeing Peterson heading for the elevators around 9 PM. “Seemed agitated,” the guard noted. “Asked him if he was okay. He just shook his head and said he hadn't seen Mr. Elias and was heading home.”

The second guard, on the executive floor, saw Peterson an hour later, pacing near the stairwell. “He looked like he’d seen a ghost. I asked if he was looking for Mr. Elias. He got real defensive. ‘No,’ he says, ‘I don’t know where he is.’ Snapped at me, almost.”

The third sighting was the key. A janitor cleaning the underground garage saw Peterson getting into his car well after midnight. “The man was weeping,” the janitor said. “Just sitting in his car, crying. I asked if he needed help, and he looked right through me and said, ‘I didn't know the man.’ It was the strangest thing.”

Three times, Corbin thought. Three different people, three denials.

He found Simon Peterson in his office, staring at a photo of him and J.C., their arms slung around each other’s shoulders, smiling. The Rock looked broken.

“It was never about the money, was it, Simon?” Corbin began, keeping his voice gentle. “Jude was a convenient sideshow. This was about faith.”

Peterson flinched. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The denial was weak, exhausted.

“You loved him,” Corbin continued. “You believed in his vision more than anyone. You were his rock. But you couldn’t let him destroy what you’d built. You couldn’t let him become a martyr for a cause you thought would fail.”

Peterson finally looked up, his eyes filled with a terrible, profound sorrow. “He was going to throw it all away! This company, our work, everything. He called it a ‘cleansing,’ but it was suicide! He wanted to burn it all down to prove a point. I built this place with him, brick by brick. I couldn’t let him.”

The confession came in a torrent of misguided love and protective rage. Peterson saw the exposé not as salvation, but as an apocalypse. He confronted J.C. in the Upper Room, pleading with him to stop. But J.C. had been resolute, calm. He knew his path.

“He told me it had to happen,” Peterson whispered, his voice cracking. “He said one of us would betray him out of greed, and one out of love. He knew, Miles. He knew it would be me. He just stood there and let me do it. He said ‘Get it over with, Simon. It’s for the best.’”

Peterson had arranged the whole thing. He used his operational knowledge to create a blind spot in the security coverage. He commissioned the untraceable weapon. He knew about Jude’s shady finances and saw the perfect scapegoat. His betrayal wasn't a grab for power, but a desperate, tragic attempt to save his church from its own savior.

In the end, everyone played the part J.C. had known they would. Jude’s greed made him the perfect suspect. Peterson’s fierce, protective loyalty made him the perfect killer. And J.C., the visionary, had orchestrated his own demise, knowing his death would trigger an investigation that would ultimately unearth and broadcast the very truth he died to reveal.

As Corbin left the TRUTH Tower, Jude was being released, his lesser crime overshadowed. The news was breaking about Peterson’s confession and, with it, the contents of the ‘New Covenant’ file, which Maryam Hadi had already leaked. The tower stood, for now, but its foundations were shaking. J.C. had torn down the temple after all. He just needed someone else’s hand to do it.