Author's note: This chapter adds some more context as to why Millie might get concerned about Professor Arthur March, hope it works.
Chapter Three
Meanwhile…
The Craftsman…
Charlie was relieved when his brother and Robin came in, as he told Don on the phone about Millie's situation and Don agreed to have a look at it and see if there is anything they could do.
"Do you think it could be anything else?" Don asked Millie
"Other than the usual, no, I don't think it could be anything other than he just seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth."
"I called a friend at LAPD to go to his home address to check it out and he'll call in a couple minutes if he doesn't hear anyone or anything in the house." Don said
"I also called a friend to get a warrant to check out surveillance cameras in the general area to see if he made stops anywhere or was grabbed by someone," Robin added, as she wanted to help as much as possible to make sure that nothing happened to the man.
"Thank you," Millie said, as she is hoping that this wasn't excessive but decided not to raise the issue until the professor was found.
Besides, Alan beat her to the punch, mostly out of concern that everyone might be overreacting to the professor being missing.
"Guys, are we sure that the guy didn't just forget his appointment or might have lost track of time and might try calling in?" Alan said
"Possible but unlikely," Charlie said, "we had an intervention over a year ago to help Arthur make sure not to keep doing this or the board was going to have him fired, since the board president, Jake Michaels, was losing patience with him."
"Oh, but still I was just…" Alan said
"It's okay, I know what you are thinking," Don said, "But it doesn't hurt to do these measures, since you never know."
Alan turned to Charlie, who was getting more concerned about his colleague since he first heard Millie's phone calls.
"How well do you know him, Charlie?"
"Honestly, not entirely too well," Charlie admitted, "I mostly knew him from a couple projects we worked on together and he didn't talk much as he was more concerned about the work than anything else."
This earned Charlie a few looks from everyone in the room.
"This was worse than me," Charlie said defensively, "Like, when there was news of a fire in the building, he wasn't in anyway concerned and kept insisting that we keep working,"
He noticed the concerned looks from everyone, with Don looking like he was going to say something.
"This was over a year ago, not another time, remember?" Charlie added
"Oh, I remember, a prank fire alarm set by a troublemaker who was also being charged for other crimes." Don said
"Yeah, and that's what lead to the intervention, as people were getting concerned that if a similar event happened but happening for real, March could have gotten either himself or other people killed."
"Anything else?" Don prodded
"Other than that, he only came to the school about five years before I did and he came from another college that shut down for unspecified reasons, and he never did tell anyone about that, since I guess we figured that it wasn't important to ask him about it, though now I wish we did."
"Thanks Charlie," Don said, patting him on the shoulder, "I'll call Colby if we can't find March in the area and see if we can get BOLO on him."
"Thanks, because I am beginning to think that will be necessary."
Don and Robin stayed for supper but they had to leave since both of them had meetings that evening and Charlie went back to grading while they were waiting to hear more news on March.
Millie had been thinking since Don and Robin left, about how odd March was sometimes, even when he was supposedly getting better about his scheduling and keeping his priorities straight.
'I wonder what March has gotten himself into?' She suddenly thought, now concerned that there was something they were missing, mainly about the man's past and the fact that he would sometimes hold back results of some of their projects for a period of time.
It is making her wonder if maybe March isn't who he says he is.