It Was Evening And It Was Morning
Solomon played the formal chauffeur to the hilt as he held the door open for Andrew as he got back in the limo and then closed the door behind him. He then very solemnly got in and drove away from the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns and back to Martin Charles. Then he relaxed. "Did it go OK?"
Andrew nodded. "I think so. At first the board was unhappy it wasn't Tim but I explained they could wait until after the funeral of his son in law who completely unexpectedly passed this morning or they could talk to me now. They reluctantly listened to me. They didn't argue that their portfolio had outpaced inflation. Then I reminded them that what they asked for was stability relative to inflation and not risky growth and that's exactly what we delivered. After a while one of them slipped that I had done better than the other company managing their assets."
"How bad?"
"Bad enough if I read their faces right. I suggested splitting the remains of the other fund between stability and growth and said I'd get back to them on Thursday with a more concrete proposal. They acted quite interested."
"That sounds good."
"Thanks again for picking up those binders and the presentation covers at Kinko's. We would be out of half inch binders and the good color laser printer would decide to die this morning."
"No problem. I got the binders while Bridget got the blood test." He handed the receipt to Andrew. "The Kinko's Claudine sent the printouts to was right by the deli. Bridget even said she wanted to walk back from there."
Andrew read the receipt and handed Solomon enough cash to cover it. "How was Bridget this morning?"
"Good. She seemed excited to get the blood test." Solomon looked beside him. "You were so frantic on the way up with getting those presentation binders assembled that I didn't want to bother you on the way up, but do you ever read National Geographic?"
"Just in doctor's offices."
"I got one I think you'd be interested in." Solomon flipped the magazine to the back by Andrew.
Andrew picked it up and looked at the cover. It was from January. Two freckle faced girls that looked almost identical were on the cover. The caption read TWINS - alike but not alike. "It looks interesting." Unfortunately, it only reinforced Andrew's belief that Solomon was far too close to Bridget to be impartial. Instead he would use Solomon for his knowledge. "Would you be willing to do a little detective work for me?"
"The wife can always use a little more money. What do you need?"
"Who was the father of Siobhan's twins?"
Solomon shrugged and was going to say he didn't know, but then it hit him. "I'll bet it was John DeLario. If he kidnapped Gemma for Siobhan then she had some pull over him. Usually when a woman gets a man to do something like that it means she's leading him by his leash."
"Can you get evidence to prove it?"
"How? Dead men don't give DNA samples."
"What about his relatives?"
Solomon nodded. "I can try."
"Good. Just drop me off then at the office. I'll take a cab to the Deli."
After returning to the office, Andrew held a company meeting and announced about Henry's death and that Tim was going to be distracted with the twins and making arrangements and that everyone needed to work extra hard so Tim would have the time he needed. That gave everyone only a little over an hour to gossip on company time.
As Andrew was going through a numerical analysis textbook on cubic Hermite splines and was formulating a strategy to use them to return Martin Charles to profitability and to keep it there, Claudine announced that Tim was on the phone for him. He gave Tim a summary of the meeting and he seemed pleased. He seemed even more pleased when he explained to Tim that he had just told the company about Henry's death because he didn't want the company wasting productive time gossiping about it and the hour they would waste was far, far more than Henry deserved.
With orders to keep his calendar but to call James's mobile before making any major decisions or purchasing decisions over $500, Tim left Andrew in charge again.
As Andrew read, his mind kept turning about matters unrelated to third degree spline polynomials. Finally he gave in and called Eye Q detective agency. They had been recommended to him eight months ago when he was considering having Siobhan tracked for signs of infidelity, that was until he returned from his month in London and everything at home suddenly seemed to be doing much better.
Could twins really be different? The National Geographic article said that when one twin broke the law the other was 50% more likely to also break the law. He supposed that was true in this case. They had both done so, but in different ways and for different reasons. Before making any sort of a decision, this time he would get every piece of information he could. That included getting a complete background and premarital investigation check on both of them. If he had done this with Catherine he'd never have even made a pass at her in a bar.
About the same time Andrew was trying to hail a cab to Steinberg's Deli, Siobhan was eating her dinner. She had left herself just enough cash to be comfortable but she had secured the rest of the money in a safe deposit box. After recovering her clothes from that horrible dive, she enjoyed the Surf and Soup special at Cybercafe on West 48th Avenue near Time Square. Her minestrone soup positively tasted canned but the surfing was fascinating. She was on instamapper. It was a web site that had a free service to let you follow a telephone that had a GPS tracking app running on it, like the one she had attached to Solomon's limo. Using their computer, she transferred the tracking information to her phone.
As she finished the soup and ate a Wireless Veggie sandwich, she scrolled through the data on her phone looking for any odd stops. The limo started at 10:12 AM, went down 4th Avenue, turned on Houston and made a stop on Broadway right by the Soho Diamond, made a stop several blocks further up Broadway and was parked there for about half an hour, went back to the Diamond and then down East Houston, stopping around 3rd Ave and East Houston for seventeen minutes. Then he went down until FDR drive and then went down FDR straight to Martin Charles. He paused there only ten minutes until going up the Henry Hudson parkway to Riverside Drive and West 120th St and remaining parked there for an hour before starting back down West 120th St. She knew that address. Martin Charles had an account there. The signal stopped as they were heading south on the Henry Hudson. The battery must have died.
That wasn't what she had expected at all. She had expected the route to go to Bloomingdale's. Why was Andrew using Solomon? Perhaps he was just trying to impress the customer but maybe Bridget wasn't at home on Park Avenue any more. He must have finally figured it out. Bridget could never play the game nearly as well as she could. She would always eventually get caught.
Siobhan went through the data again, looking for a pattern. This just wasn't anything close to her usual pattern. It didn't go to the good shopping districts. It didn't cross home once. But it did cross the Diamond twice and it crossed the area around East Houston and Avenue B twice.
Was Bridget going to the Diamond to step out on Andrew already? He was so boring she would have to find somebody sooner or later. No, of all the hotels in Manhattan that's the last she'd go to. Solomon was probably just sent by Andrew for some company business, maybe picking up someone from the Paris or London office.
If Andrew kicked Bridget out for just being an inferior imitation then he would have to tell her about Henry's demise. He was just too goody-goody not to tell her and news like that just wasn't something he'd ever say over the telephone. So which of those areas was one Bridget could be holed up in. Obviously the area around East Houston and Avenue B or Avenue C. Solomon had turned West from Avenue C onto East Houston. It was the one area that was both reasonably priced and residential, so if Bridget wasn't still at 626 Park Avenue she'd check there next.
But not tonight. Tonight she would go to the St. Mark's Hotel right by NYU. It was a little cash only hotel she and Henry used to slip off to. It wasn't the finest place but it was clean, had a private bath and was utterly discrete.
As Siobhan left the Cybercafe on West 48th on Monday evening, it was Tuesday morning in New Zealand. Juliet was being called from her bed. "Come on, Juliet. Get a move on and come see the whales," called Andrew's cousin. "I have a spare dive suit for you to wear." It turned out that Dr. Eirian Gwalchmai was a locally well known marine biologist people called the "Whale lady."
Juliet at first hoped that Aunt Eirian would go away if she pretended she wasn't there. Unfortunately it didn't seem to be working. "I really feel awful. I hardly slept last night. I'm jet lagged out."
"You're missing a chance to see whales in the wild up close and personal."
"You wouldn't want me in a boat with you today. I couldn't keep up." In truth seeing wild whales up close and personal wasn't on her top ten list of things to do.
Eirian sighed. "Alright. Let me give you some advice then. Whatever you're going to do today, do it outside. There's sunblock in the closet. Use it and get as much sunshine as you can. It's nature's way of resetting your body to your new time. When I have to fly, I always take a long walk the next day and I'm right as rain."
Juliet's watch told her that she'd have two or three hours of prime Facebook and texting time before the civilized world went to sleep. It was a beautiful house that was on a hill right over a beach, overlooking a gorgeous blue bay. She took her Blackberry outside in the sun, found a spot with good reception and made the best use of it.
