Obstruction of Justice by Perri O'Shaughnessy

Author:Perri O'Shaughnessy [O'Shaughnessy, Perri]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Women Lawyers, Legal, Fiction, Nina (Fictitious Character), Reilly, Suspense, Legal Stories, Mystery & Detective, Tahoe, Women Sleuths, Lake (Calif. And Nev.), Detective and Mystery Stories, Nina (Fictitious Character) - Fiction, Women Lawyers - Fiction, Lake (Calif. And Nev.) - Fiction, Mystery and Detective Stories
ISBN: 9780440224723
Publisher: Dell
Published: 1997-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

PART TWO

17

TWO WEEKS PASSED.

Jason had disappeared. He might be dead, or he might be on the run. The police were looking for him. Quentin de Beers’s death had been ruled a homicide. Sarah and Molly had holed up in the house at Regan Beach and refused to talk to anyone. For the moment the situation had developed the kind of surface calm of a house teetering at the edge of a slippery hillside just before a severe winter storm.

Nina told no one about her visit to Wright’s Lake. She needed some time to sort out why she had picked up a pair of sunglasses from the cabin floor, and why she had used a pay phone to make her 911 call untraceable.

She was obstructing the police investigation and concealing possible evidence in a homicide, offenses that could easily lead to disbarment and the loss of her law practice. Every day that she delayed telling the police what she had seen and done, she knew she exposed herself further. This frightened her very much. Yet she still fought the tide of reasons to come forward, obstinately and instinctively.

About a week after the fire, she woke up at three A.M., her mind racing. She had been dreaming about the waves at Asilomar.

When she was fifteen years old at Pacific Grove High School, Nina had learned to surf. A boyfriend taught her and helped her find a wetsuit and a board she could handle. When they broke up, Nina kept surfing, from Asilomar State Beach near Monterey to Steamer’s Landing at Santa Cruz sixty miles around Monterey Bay. Most of the time she went alone, or with Matt. For two years she lived for the cold clean waves, the moment of truth when she pulled herself up on the board and went for it.

Surfing made her aware of the complete indifference of nature. The waves were powerful forces, predictable sometimes, but utterly unconcerned with the small beings in rubber suits trying to stay astride them. When possible, she cooperated with the waves and enjoyed their power, but sometimes she had to resist them. She learned to watch them and see how they were running before she went out, to pace herself and come in when she was too tired, and to paddle out fast to get over the ones that were too big and dangerous, or dive to avoid them.

Now, in the middle of the night, in the silent sleeping house, at the hour when insights come, she realized that she practiced law like that. She tried to assess the dangers and be prudent, to ride whatever situation she found herself in and save her energy, but sometimes her instincts told her she had to fight, to intervene, to paddle against the tide of events.

During the fire, and most strongly when she saw the sunglasses on the cabin floor, she remembered sensing a force that seemed to her to be as aloof from human concerns as the moon pulling the tidal swell, catching her up and pulling her into the confusion.

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