Relative Impact

by Trevor Scott

  She continued, “It’s from a woman named Christina Borelli. Theoretically, our first cousin.”

  “She must be the daughter of the uncle we’re heading to see.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  “Where’s she from?”

  “Not sure. But her area code is 802. That’s Vermont.”

  They had already tracked down their uncle, Pasquale Borelli, along with his address and land line in the 802-area code just outside of Bennington, Vermont.

  “How long until we get there?”

  Robin clicked through her phone and said, “A little over three and a half hours, depending on this weather.”

  “You’re not ready to tell her we’re heading there right now,” he said.

  “No. But I sent her my number in case she wants to contact me.”

  “It might be better to come in stealth and talk with the one who might be our uncle.”

  “You still don’t believe in DNA?” she asked.

  DNA wasn’t the problem, he thought. As a federal agent, he had used the technology a lot to put criminals away. As far as he knew, the process was nearly infallible. “I’m just not sure about their database. If humans are involved, errors can be made.”

  “If our father did have a brother, why didn’t he tell us about him?”

  That was his concern as well. “He must have had a good reason. I don’t think his assault charge would have caused our father to shun him for life.”

  They both heard her phone buzz.

  “It’s a text from her.”

  “What she saying?”

  “She’s confused like us.” Robin smiled and clicked on her phone.

  This went on for the next two hours. Based on what Robin told him, they were both being extremely cautious and coy, not wanting to give away too much information. The rain had given way to partial clouds as they headed north toward Albany, New York.

  “You could just call her,” Max said.

  “I’m getting what I need. Her mother and father are divorced, but both live in the area. She has a younger brother who’s thirty. He lives up north and is a beekeeper and honey producer.”

  “What does she do?”

  “Owns a coffee shop in downtown Bennington. I’ve been to the website. It looks really cute.”

  “I could use some coffee about now,” he said.

  “Should we go there?”

  “I’m guessing we’re about an hour out. Did you tell her about me?”

  “I said I had an older brother.”

  “By less than a half hour. What else did you tell her?”

  “Not much. She did most of the disclosure. But she said her mother is a college professor locally. Her dad is retired and lives alone. I think we should go see this Christina first.”

  “Why?”

  “She said her dad is a bit crazy. A right-wing recluse.”

  Sounded like his kind of people. “Yeah, we might not want to surprise him.”

  “My thoughts also.”

  “Call her,” he insisted.

  Instead, she pulled up a photo of Christina and turned her phone toward her brother. “She’s cute, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess. She could lose the nose ring, though.”

  “It’s a nose stud. I like it. She’s also got a number of tats.”

  “I’m guessing she has a Mao and Che T-shirt in her dresser also.”

  Robin shook her head. “Why would you say that?”

  “Because we’re going to the People’s Republic of Vermont,” he said with derision. “A bunch of Marxists and hippies live there. Never mind. Don’t call her. We should go in for coffee and see if she’s there.”

  His sister reluctantly agreed with him. But for the next hour she did continue to text Christina Borelli, making sure she was still at work in her coffee shop.

  They rolled into Bennington around five p.m. Max parked a block from the center of town, with a view of the Roma Coffee Shop ahead of them.

  “Do we go in together?” Robin asked.

  “Might as well,” he said. “Get a read on her. Where’s our hotel from here?”

  “North of town. Toward Bennington College.”

  “Alright. Let’s go.”

  “This is exciting,” she said.

  They got out and walked the short distance to the coffee shop. Not many patrons were drinking coffee on this Friday evening—only two women near the front window, and a young man who had a stack of college text books next to his laptop. None of them even looked up when they entered. Only the dark-haired woman behind the counter with the nose stud. He hated to admit it, but she was tall like Robin, and had similar cheek bones. And Robin was right, she had tats on her shoulders—a dragon on her left shoulder and a tiger on her right shoulder. Very tasteful, he thought.

  Robin ordered a large cappuccino and Max ordered an Americano with two shots.

  When the young woman was done with their drinks, she set them on the counter. Robin paid and then said, “I don’t want to freak you out. But I’m Robin Kane. And this is my brother Max.”

  Christina looked a little freaked out. Like she was a cat cornered by two dogs and was looking for a way to escape. She went to a back room and brought out another employee to cover the counter. Then she came around the counter and went immediately to Robin, giving her a long hug.

  Max put out his hand to shake, but Christina ignored it and gave him a hard, long hug also.

  “I’m blown away right now,” Christina said. “Please, sit at the corner table.”

  The three of them took seats, with Max up against the wall like he liked it. He let the two girls jabber while he took in everything they said.

  “I took the DNA test on a whim,” Christina said. “We had always heard we had cousins in Italy, which we found, but we had no idea we had American cousins. Other than those here in Vermont, New Hampshire and the Boston area.”

  “So, we have a lot of cousins here?” Robin asked.

  “I told you about my brother up north,” Christina said. “You also have an aunt in New Hampshire. Well, she lives with her husband most of the time in Boston. They have a lake home up by Lebanon. My cousin Frank is an only child. He lives on the edge of Hanover and Lebanon.”

  Max stretched his arms from the long drive.

  Christina’s eyes got wide. “You have a gun. Are you a cop?”

  “Retired military,” Max said. “A former federal agent.”

  “Thank you for your service,” Christina said. “My cousin Frank spent six years in the Navy. He’s always packing. Says it’s his God-given Constitutional right.”

  “I’ll have to meet him,” Max said.

  “Maybe we can get him to drive down for the weekend. He owns an electrical company.”

  Robin said, “That’s impressive that the two of you own your own companies at such young ages.”

  “You didn’t say how old you two are.”

  Max glanced at Robin.

  “We’ll be forty in about a week,” Robin said.

  “You’re twins? That’s so cool. Our two uncles who died before I was born were twins.”

  “How did they die?” Robin asked.

  “They were shot and killed at a Boston restaurant.”

  “That’s terrible,” Robin said. “What were their names?”

  “Giuseppe and Giovanni Borelli. We were thinking maybe you were related to one of them. Either that, or my aunt has some explaining to do.”

  “Maybe we should talk with your father,” Max said.

  Christina had a confused look on her face. “How did you get here so fast? I didn’t even think about that.” She picked up her phone and checked something. “Where is area code seven, seven five?”

  Robin took this. “Nevada. We were already heading this way to see your father when you emailed me. We grew up our entire life thinking we were the last of the Kane clan, since both of our parents are dead. I took the DNA test to try to understand my heritage, and I was blown a
way when I saw that I had cousins and an uncle.”

  Christina wiped away a tear from her right eye. “Alright. Let’s go see papa.”

  As their cousin went to the counter to tell her employee she would be leaving, Max leaned into his sister and said, “I like her.”

  “So do I,” Robin said.

  5

  Max and Robin followed their cousin out of town. Christina was driving a silver Prius with its right tail light out, so she wasn’t hard to follow. By now, darkness shrouded the Green Mountains in a palpable pall of gloom, the rain from earlier shimmering off the fresh, new leaves of spring.

  As the Prius pulled into a private drive that warned of repercussions for trespassing, blinding lights suddenly flashed on.

  Max turned his truck and backed into a spot of low wet grass, leaving him the possible escape if needed. His training kicked in, even though this was supposed to be a friendly uncle.

  “Are we okay?” Robin asked.

  “Yeah. The guy is cautious. I don’t blame him.” He waited for his cousin to get out of her squirrel-powered car and then he did the same, stepping down from his truck.

  Robin met him around the back of the truck. “This is a little like Deliverance.”

  She was being over-dramatic, he thought. But he calmed her with a hand against her back.

  Christina waved her hand at the front porch and the door suddenly opened.

  Standing before them was a man in sweat pants and a New England Patriots T-shirt, his hands grasping a fully-loaded tactically-configured AR-15—similar to the way Max had his own gun rigged up. Max’s had more recent sights, but the guts were the same.

  Max and Robin accompanied their cousin up the stairs to the wooden porch. Max wasn’t sure what to expect, but what he found was a place of pride. Out front was a tall flag pole with two lights shining up at the stars and stripes. The house itself had to be more than a hundred years old, but it was freshly painted white with dark green trim and shutters.

  Christina said, “Papa, sorry to come without calling. I did text, though.”

  “I just looked at that,” the father said. “Who are these folks?”

  “Sir, I’m Max Kane, and this is my sister, Robin.” He reached his hand out to shake.

  Their supposed uncle hesitated. Then he held the AR-15 with his left hand and reached out his right to shake with a firm grip. Then he shook Robin’s hand as well.

  “Can we come inside?” Christina said. “You’ll want to sit down for this.”

  With a shift of his head, the father let them pass into his house. The inside was as immaculate as the outside. The place resembled a fine Colonial bed and breakfast, with antiques placed precisely about the main living room.

  Christina took off her shoes, so Max and Robin followed her lead.

  “What are you packing?” the father asked Max.

  Max raised his shirt and said, “Glock nine-mil.”

  “Austrian,” the man said, shaking his head. “I would expect a military man to go American.”

  Glancing about the room, Max finally saw a number of old Army memorabilia—from the man’s discharge to photos of him as a younger man in uniform, and finally to a purple heart displayed.

  “Thank you for your service, Mister Borelli,” Max said.

  “Call me Pasquale,” he said, setting his rifle in a corner by the door. “You folks want something to drink?”

  “I could use a beer,” Max said.

  “Diet coke if you’ve got it,” Robin said.

  “Young lady, you don’t need diet coke,” Pasquale said.

  “That’s why,” Robin said. “I think I’m addicted to the stuff. If I drank regular coke, I’d be two hundred pounds.”

  Pasquale said, “I’ve got cold regular.”

  “That’s fine.”

  He started for the kitchen, a hitch in his stride, and stopped. “Tell me you don’t drink European beer also.”

  “Anything but light beer.”

  “Now you’re talking. What’s the point of that?”

  The father and their uncle wandered off and Max noticed a slight favoring of his right leg.

  Once he was gone, the three of them took seats in the living room. Max and Robin took the sofa and Christina took one of the lounge chairs.

  “How do you want to do this?” Robin asked Christina.

  “Papa likes straight-forward talk,” Christina said. “Let me tell him.”

  Pasquale came back with three Budweiser bottles and a regular coke in a can. He handed the drinks around and then took a seat in his chair, which was a bit more worn out than the rest of the furniture in the room.

  Christina didn’t even take a drink before she said, “Max and Robin are twins. Remember that DNA test we took recently?”

  “Jesus, girl. I’m sixty with full faculties.”

  “I know. Anyway, these two came up on my relative list as first cousins.”

  Her father sipped his beer and glanced at Max sideways. “Unless your Auntie Anna popped out twins without our knowledge, that seems unlikely.”

  “DNA doesn’t lie, Papa.”

  Now Pasquale turned to Max and Robin, looking them over from top to bottom. “Jesus Christ. The boy looks just like one of my brothers. Almost black hair. Same muscle structure and shoulders. And the girl. What’s your name again?”

  “Robin.”

  “You look just like a girl from Boston I once knew,” Pasquale said.

  Max took his sister’s hand.

  “Which brother, Papa?” Christina asked. “Giuseppe or Giovanni?”

  Pasquale shook his head. “This can’t be true. Do you have a picture of your parents?”

  Robin reached into her purse and pulled out her phone. After a little flipping, she pulled up some images. First, she brought up a picture of her father from their youth. He was standing overlooking a mine next to a massive yellow earthmover. She handed the phone to Pasquale, who seemed stunned.

  “If you flip to the left, you can see our mother,” Robin said.

  Pasquale did so, and his eyes widened again. Then he handed the phone back to Robin.

  “You know our parents?” Robin asked.

  Their uncle nodded his head slowly. “Those photos are old. Are they still alive?”

  Max took this question. “My father died in a mining accident twenty-four years ago, when we were sixteen. My mother died in a car accident two years later. Until a few days ago, we thought we were the last of the Kane family.”

  A tear formed in the right eye of Pasquale, which he promptly wiped away with the back of his hand. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “Didn’t know what?” Robin asked.

  “About the two of you,” Pasquale explained. “What name did your father use?”

  “My father’s name was Brad Kane,” Max said.

  “And your mother?”

  Robin said, “Judy Kane.”

  Pasquale shook his head and took a long drink of his beer. “Your father’s name was Bruno Borelli. Your mom’s name was Hedy Ryan before she married your dad.”

  Max had run this exact scenario through his mind for the past couple of days. To have it come true was almost like a movie unfolding in his brain.

  “Are you sure?” Max asked.

  Laughing, Pasquale said, “I know my own brother.”

  “But Papa,” Christina pled. “You never mentioned an Uncle Bruno.”

  “We couldn’t,” Pasquale said. “We had to assume they were dead.”

  “What?” Now Max was confused.

  “Your dad was a Marine,” Pasquale said. “A tough son of a bitch. You look just like him, Max. How did you serve?”

  Max explained his jobs in the Air Force, from combat controller to OSI special agent, retiring as a captain.

  “That makes perfect sense,” Pasquale said. “Combat controllers are badass mother fuckers. Pardon my French. Your papa was Force Recon in the Marines. I was Airborne in the Army. Got shot in some unknown battl
e that never hits the papers in a country nobody can find on a map. Based on the look on your face, you saw some shit.”

  Max said nothing.

  Robin said, “Silver Star, two Bronze Stars with Valor, and three Purple Hearts.”

  Pasquale reached his hand out to Max with newfound respect. They shook longer this time, and then his uncle said, “Your father would have been really proud of you, Max. I’m proud of you.”

  “I was just doing my job,” Max said. He never liked to think of his actions in combat as anything more than that.

  “What about our mother?” Robin asked.

  “Hedy? She was a fine woman. Took bookkeeping out of high school. Most of her family are cops in Boston.”

  “We have relatives on that side?” Robin asked.

  “Oh yeah. I haven’t kept track of all of them. Hedy’s younger brother Curtis owns a bar near Logan. His kids are both cops.”

  Robin was speechless.

  Max said, “Can you tell us why they ended up in Nevada?”

  “I have no idea,” Pasquale said. “I assume they were in witness protection. Seriously, we all thought they were dead.”

  A thought came to Max. “How did your other brothers die?”

  “They were minding their own business in Boston and got gunned down eating Sunday pasta at their favorite restaurant,” Pasquale said.

  “Was my father there?” Max asked.

  “Your father was in the Marines. He came home on leave for their funerals.”

  “And my mother?”

  “I think she was in school at the time. Business school.”

  Robin leaned forward. “Why do you think they were in witness protection?”

  “The Italians and the Irish ran Boston back then,” Pasquale said. “You were either a cop or a robber.”

  Max let out a heavy breath of air, unsure if he was hearing things right. “So, what you’re telling me is our family is a bad cliché.”

  “Not so bad,” Pasquale said. “Your mother had both Italian and Irish blood. We heard she was placed into the families as an FBI informant. One of her brothers was up on charges too long to explain, and he ended up back on the streets after your mom and pop disappeared. He could have gotten out, but he was killed in a shoot-out a couple years later. It’s pretty well known that your mom turned on the families.”