Unfinished Business. C. A. Walters Walters

      Chapter 1

      April, 1978

      Farmington, Connecticut. It was a great place to be a kid. There were old buildings that had been around since the days of the revolutionary war, many of them looking like the mansions in television shows. There were cemeteries with headstones dating back to the days of the Pilgrims.

      In the woods, if you were lucky, you could find flint arrowheads from the days when the Indians lived in the area. The entire valley, for in reality that’s what it was, the Farmington River Valley, was lush with trees. It seemed you could not go anywhere without looking like you would get lost in a primeval forest, though in reality, modern roads ran throughout the entire region.

      Small towns dotted the region, the nearest “city” being Hartford, some six miles away. Or Waterbury, around fifteen miles in a different direction. Of course, to an eight-year-old boy, the entire world seemed to be nothing but woods, trails, and parks. Not to mention, hills. There didn’t seem to be a flat piece of land for miles around, and indeed, there wasn’t. This is the foothills of the White Mountains. And though most people in the Country thought of the Atlantic Ocean when they thought of Connecticut at all, the reality was that the ocean was over 70 miles away by highway.

      The Devil’s Playground, a State Park, was not far away. And the Farmington River ran right through town, so there were plenty of fishing spots, and places where kids could go swimming. Even if you didn’t have a suit, you could either swim in your underwear, or skinny-dip. Nobody cared if a few kids were cavorting in the river. It was a simpler time, in a quiet little town. In short, it was a great place to grow up.

      Robbie Lacombe, age eight, and his family (mom, dad, and grandma) lived in Farmington. Gran lived in a house near the river, and Robbie and his parents lived around a half mile away.

      Robbie loved to go visit his Gran, and it wasn’t a really long bike ride. Most of it was uphill until you got near Gran’s, then it went down a little. But that meant that on the way home, it was mostly downhill, and that made it much better, especially since Robbie liked to help his Gran around the house, and would sometimes be a little tired when he finally headed home.

      One day in August, Robbie looked out the window of his bedroom, and saw it was going to be another beautiful fall day in New England. School had not yet started, and it being a weekday, there were no cartoons on TV, so he decided to take a ride on his bike to see grandma. Riding down the lane, he could smell the sweetness of the fallen leaves, and enjoy the beautiful colors. It was a great time to be alive, and a great place to be a kid. When he got to grandma’s house, she was tending her little vegetable garden, getting the last harvest in before closing it out.

      “Oh good!” she exclaimed, “Here’s Robbie! Just in time to pick the last few veggies, so we can mulch and close down the garden for the year.” Of course, Robbie was thinking of strawberries, not veggies, but it was a start. He was already tasting grandma’s strawberry rhubarb pie, when she said, “Just imagine the nice squash and zucchini we will have.” So much for visions of pie! But Robbie loved his grandma, so he enjoyed being there, even if he had to work the garden, and think of veggies. There weren’t a lot of kids his age in his neighborhood, so Robbie spent a lot of time either riding his bike, or helping his grandma. Mom and dad worked a lot, so he really didn’t spend time with them until suppertime.

      After breakfast, Robbie’s Mom would give him his lunch (or lunch money), and send him off to school. Most days he would ride his bike to school, unless the weather was really bad, then Mom would give him a ride, and pick him up after school. When school was out for the day, he was free to ride around until supper time, as long as he didn’t have a lot of homework to do. Mom would have a nice supper ready for him around 5:00, so he knew not to be late.

      After helping grandma in the garden, she took him into the house for some milk and cookies. Homemade chocolate chip cookies! Robbie’s favorite. Just being with grandma made Robbie feel warm inside, loved, protected, and safe.

      August flowed into September, and school started once again. Now Robbie had a little less time to ride his bike, but since he liked school, it was okay. Never one to really spend a lot of time with the other kids, Robbie got along okay with them, but preferred to be by himself. The teachers all said Robbie was a good student, but very quiet and withdrawn. Not sullen, he was happy enough, just not a loud and rambunctious child. Since he was starting third grade this year, Robbie knew who his teacher would likely be. Hopefully not old Miss Simmons, who it seemed had been teaching there for the last two-hundred years. And he really hoped it wouldn’t be Mr. Grisko, who talked in a monotone all the time, and made it very hard not to fall asleep in class. Robbie had a love for math and anything to do with logic. The math just came easily to him for some reason, and the logic was a holdover from his favorite TV show, Star Trek. The way Mr. Spock could figure out the solution to just about any problem was really cool.

      Robbie had started learning Piano when he was five, and though he liked to be able to play songs, the practice was reeeeeeaaaaaallllly boring! And Mom always had the egg timer ready to go after supper, so he would practice his scales for exactly half an hour and his finger exercises. Then the song he was learning at the time. After that, if he wanted to, he could play whatever he wanted.

      Robbie wasn’t much for team sports, but he loved to run, and jump, and climb trees. In gym class, he always did well in strength and speed contests, but he really didn’t care for the ball games and such. Dad was teaching him archery, and he really liked shooting at targets. He didn’t shoot at any animals, dad told him not to, and he couldn’t see hurting an animal just for sport. Robbie still spent a lot of time riding his bike, because he knew winter was coming, and with the snow, the bike would be put away for the winter. Of course, then came toboggans, sleds, ice skates, and all that. But Robbie’s favorite pastime was riding his bike in the beautiful New England woods. He would find trails, and imagine himself as an explorer, the first person to ever find this particular trail. Of course he knew that someone had to have made the trail, but that was