M is for Must Find Out
Charlie was adamant to find out what happened during their schooldays especially the last two years. He must find out for his peace of mind, if nothing else.
Twenty-three years ago, Charlie failed to pay Don 10 for their mother's birthday present bringing back memories of what happened during their schooldays. Remembering the incident, Charlie was in a dilemma about telling Don where the money went.
He finally remembered what he did with the ten dollars and it was a secret.
He knew the money didn't matter anymore since the years had passed by, but he wanted to know what happened to Hog aka Hogan Phillips as he learned from the yearbook.
During those days, they weren't interested in the yearbook. It was chucked aside after their school years had ended. Both of them had their own careers to pursue.
In the end, Don left his baseball career because he knew he was just not good enough to make it big time. Out of nowhere he upped and joined FBI training in Quantico. Don's a very dedicated FBI agent now, and ever since he came back, they have grown closer.
He went on to his academic calling. He went to Princeton and is now a professor in the famous CalSci under his mentor Professor Lawrence Flienthart, who is also a very close and good friend. It was a choice he never regretted just like Don.
Now with this niggling need to get everything out in the open even though it was so many years ago, he became obsessed with this Bart/Hog thingy.
He ran through the database for the Phillips surname, and there were thousands and thousands. He then ran through it with some information like the school he was from and the year he left and bingo!
Now, all he had to do was run through the articles looking for news relating to Hogan Phillips or Bartholomew Botany giving them a few years start after they left school
He read through to see if it was the correct person he was looking for.
It was tedious looking through the various article and news that popped up. But, finally, he got lucky.
There was a small article about a drug bust back in the nineties, and one name popped out. "Hog P, better known as Hogan Phillips, was arrested in conjunction with the drug bust. He was one of ten members of a group called the Botanist."
Charlie had to laugh aloud. Even after school, he was still with the Botany name, it must have been he was with Bart so long that the name stuck. He wondered if Bart was involved.
But he didn't find his name anywhere or maybe he was just not interested in looking for Bart but only in Hog.
He also wondered if he should go into the FBI files, but it looked like a small bust, so he didn't think the FBI was involved.
He continued his search when he had free time. He had caught Amita looking at him strangely when she was in his office. He pretended he did not notice.
Amita asked him what he was looking for. She knew he was not working on any FBI cases. 'Nothing,' he muttered and slowly closed the file he was looking at.
He didn't want Amita to know yet. He decided he would tell her when he knew more.
He read that Hog P was released after serving two months jail time and doing some community work around ten years ago.
This was a small news article, and there was nothing more. Charlie ran through the newspapers till 2005.
He wondered if there was anything more and ifhe stop at 2005 and find other ways to locate Hog P.
Now that he had police records, he thought about running through the police files which would require his special authorized password. If anybody noticed, it might come to Don's attention.
Should he risk this, or maybe just get Don, or any of his team, to get the address for him.
He packed up his laptop and collected his things. He suddenly thought of going to lunch with his brother and maybe with some members of his team. He had an idea and hoped it would work without being too obvious about it.
All right. He will do it right now. He picked up his cell and called his brother.
"Don, hi, I er.. wonder if you are free for lunch today. I have the rest of the afternoon off, and it's been quite a while since we had lunch together. How about it?"
"Oh hello, Chucky, I was going to call you. I have something to ask you too. Well, come on in. I'll wait for you."
Charlie was surprised, and now he was curious as to what Don wanted to ask him. "OK, that's great. I'm coming to your office now. See you in fifteen."
tbc