1995 would resurface. I’m very pleased to see it has. And no, I didn’t go to the funeral. I didn’t want to have to see Gemma, John’s widow, again. To be blunt, I know she would have hated seeing me.”
Miranda drew a deep breath, cocked her head to one side. “Where to start?” She sat forward and looked back and forth between them. “I was only twenty-three when I married Nate, who was some twenty-five years my senior. I know how that sounds, but when you’re twenty-three, you don’t think about him being on Social Security by the time you’re forty. All you see is a man in his prime, well-known, smart, successful, and the biggie? He loved me.” She rolled her eyes. “Ah, one’s optimism at twenty-three. As you know, Nate was a big-time criminal lawyer, really talented in the courtroom. I knew firsthand about some of his clients since I’d seen him in court a dozen times. That’s how we met. I’d been assigned to spend a year on the court and the crime beat with a senior reporter at the Richmond Tribune, so I was well aware he defended some scary people. As I said, he was a big name locally, a beautiful man, really. We were married three months later.
“We’d been married maybe six months when he told me in bed one night we were leaving the country in two days. He said money wouldn’t be a problem, we’d live anywhere I liked. I said Bali, thinking he was joking, but of course, he wasn’t. When I realized he was perfectly serious, I asked if one of his criminal clients had threatened him, and he said yes. I knew he was concerned about one particularly vicious client’s criminal father, a man named Showalter. Nate lost the son’s murder case. The son had stabbed his wife, and the evidence was overwhelming. I had no trouble believing someone like Showalter, the father, could kill him as well as me in retribution. I asked Nate if it was Showalter, but he only wanted to talk about how perfect the timing was for us, how we’d have a lifelong honeymoon. He grinned really big, kissed me, and made me promise I’d only wear bikinis on the beach in Bali.”
She paused, splayed her hands in front of her. “Agents, I was in love with my husband, still had stars in my eyes. Leave the country? It sounded like pure romantic adventure to me. I still had my mom, but we could certainly keep in close touch. So I readily agreed to leave the country with him. I remember before I fell asleep, Nate told me I was to pack only the clothes I needed, to leave the rest. It was then he dropped the money bomb. He said he was getting a lot of money due to him the next day. I asked him what money, where was it coming from, but he wouldn’t tell me anything else. I knew he was very well-to-do, no money problems, but the way he talked about that money, his excitement mixed with fear, it seemed like a very big deal to him. I wondered if he had stolen some of that money, but I couldn’t ask him, I simply couldn’t. He was my husband, and the fact was, I wouldn’t believe he was a crook. But Nate never got that money, and he drowned the next day while fishing by himself, they said, something he rarely did. John Clarkson was usually with Nate. I never found out why they weren’t together that day, but I do remember John was home and not in Washington the day Nate drowned.”
42
Savich said, “Nate and John Clarkson had been friends since they were boys, isn’t that right, Mrs. Stirling?”
Miranda looked toward the fireplace when a big spurt of flame shot up from the stacked logs. She sighed. “Actually, once we were married, I soon came to realize I didn’t know the half of it. It didn’t take long for me to feel like I was married to both men. They were inseparable when John was home from Washington. He and Gemma were always with us, always. I was the last part of a foursome, the very young newcomer. I started to wonder whether Nate married me for the sex and because I looked good on his arm. But he kept saying he loved me, easy enough words to say.