Chapter 50
Robin Twen watched as the waiter set the steaming lobster dinner in front of Ruby Barsconi.
Barsconi, her face flushed, blond hair cascading around her oval face, was already three glasses of Merlot deep.
In addition to ordering the lobster dinner and clam chowder, she had a dozen oysters on the half shell on the way. All on Twen’s tab.
Twen turned to their own fried clams. They had skipped beer and an entree—-the bill was wildly over the KBFR expense allowance.
Even in Maine, lobster cost a fortune—-and the station had already complained about the expense of flying them to Maine to begin with, to dig deeper into the Cash incident.
“Thanks for taking me out to lunch,” Barsconi said, cracking off one of the claws and sucking out the meat with remarkable expertise, juice dribbling from her chin.
For a woman this pretty, Twen thought, her table manners were sorely lacking. They gave a strained smile. “No problem. You’re doing me a favor by agreeing to meet with me.”
“Oh, sure. I’m not surprised Cash is causing problems in Colorado. She was always quite aggressive here.”
“How so?” Twen asked. Their eyes wandered down to the tape recorder they had placed on the table, to make sure it was still running.
It was a big, clunky, reliable old thing—-but Twen liked old things.
Their house was full of antiques and knickknacks they had found at yard sales and junk stores over the years.
“Bossy. Imposing her opinions on everyone else. Walking around like she owned the place. The guys had a nickname for her.” Barsconi leaned forward, and the scent of expensive perfume wafting over. “Shrek!” She giggled and leaned back again. “They used to put little plastic Shrek dolls on her desk.”
“Hmm,” said Twen, quickly smoothing a disapproving frown from their face.
Barsconi flapped a hand at the waitress and ordered another Merlot, then turned her dazzling green eyes back to Twen again. “Won’t you have one? You a teetotaler?”
“I’m working,” said Twen.
“I hope you don’t mind if I do. It’s not every day I get wined and dined by such an attractive journalist. You’re quite pretty—-or should I say handsome? Slim pickings in Portland.”
“Let’s get back to what you were saying.” Twen consulted their notes. “You were about to describe the incident that led to Cash’s termination from the Portland Criminal Investigations Division?”
“Oh yes.” Barsconi worked a French--tipped nail into a lobster claw to
draw the meat out. “Cash responded to a report of a vagrant on Sherman Street. She and her partner at the time, Monty Rex, responded. She ended up tasing the guy and he died.”
“I’m a little confused about the accusation of racism. The person was white, wasn’t he?”
“French Canadian. They’ve always had it tough in Maine, discrimination--wise.”
“But French Canadians are generally white, right?” Twen asked again.
The waitress arrived with twelve glistening oysters. There was a moment of silence as Barsconi sucked one down with enthusiasm. Twen glanced out the window across Casco Bay, the wind whipping up whitecaps on the water. Maine was one of the few places they’d been that was as pretty as Colorado.
“Yeah, they are. But there’s history here—-centuries of bad blood between descendants of the French and British colonists.
They get called a lot of nasty names, like frozen frogs, Canucks, or beaver--beaters.
There’s discrimination for sure. So when the homeless guy died, the Franco American community got upset. Justifiably so.”
“But the man was threatening people, and the autopsy said he was high on meth. Wouldn’t that make tasing justified?”
“Not as we saw it.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“The chief and me.” She then hastily added, “And the department, of course.”
“It’s my understanding that you did an interview with a newspaper about the incident, before Cash was terminated—-is that right?”
“Oh yes. I felt people had to know. The chief and I felt it was the right thing to do.”
“Of course, of course. What was Cash’s position at the time?”
“She was a detective sergeant assigned to the East City Area.”
“Did you work in the same unit with her?”
“Oh no. I didn’t. I was working in street crimes conducting bail checks.”
Twen took a moment to munch on a fried clam. It was delicious. “You were then promoted to detective sergeant yourself in the investigative section—-the East City Area—-after Cash’s departure, right? You essentially got her job.”
“Yes.” Barsconi paused in her work shimmying the lobster tail from its shell, now eyeing Twen a little warily. “I was promoted because of my hard work. I earned that promotion.”
“Of course. Quite a leap for you up the law enforcement ladder.”
“There was a hiring freeze at the time.”
“Right. The chief at the time was …” Twen pretended to consult their notes again. “Luke Mezey, correct? How well did you know him?”
“Not well.”
“But weren’t you close?”
Barsconi kept her eyes focused on the lobster tail, and her shoulders tensed up. “Just saw him at work.”
Twen decided it was time to drop the bomb—-and maybe even get the nine oysters that were left.
“Detective Barsconi, I don’t think you’re being particularly honest with me about any of this.
I spoke with Monty Rex. He was disciplined after the incident.
He said you and the chief were quite close.
In fact, he had a little photograph that I persuaded him to share with me.
He said he’d never done anything with it—-not wanting, he said, to wreck his career … but he kept it.”
Twen slid a photograph over to Barsconi, who had completely stopped eating now.
The picture was of Barsconi and Mezey with their tongues down each other’s throats in the Portland Harbor Hotel lobby.
“That was taken around the time you were promoted. Chief Mezey had been married sixteen years, three kids, wife pregnant—-right?”
Barsconi’s lips began to tremble. “Fake. Fake photo.”
“Oh no. Not fake. This photo is ten years old.” Twen wanted to get her to admit the affair on the record, and that would be tough.
“It’s also my understanding that he’s eighteen years your senior.
You seem like such a good person,” Twen lied, and leaned forward, “I can’t imagine you doing something like this without being coerced.
Especially with the power imbalance. You know how men are.
Mezey manipulated you into a relationship back when Cash worked for CID, didn’t he? ”
Barsconi’s eyes lit up at the out Twen was giving her. But still she said nothing.
Twen turned off the tape recorder. “Not going to record this.”
Of course, the conversation would still be on the record, although Barsconi was probably not going to understand that. Still, she had clammed up.
“I’m running the article and the photo,” said Twen. “Now’s your one and only chance to tell your side of the story. To defend yourself. Because it looks bad—-really bad.”
After a long silence, she said, “He took advantage of me.”
Bingo. She had admitted to the relationship. “Of course he did. It wasn’t your fault.”
“It wasn’t. He manipulated me back then and ever since.”
Ever since? Twen had to fake an expression of sympathy and concern.
Barsconi certainly had been manipulated, through expensive vacations and luxury handbags that Chief Mezey had been buying her over the years.
That was also going in the story. And from what she’d just said, it seemed the relationship was still ongoing. Not to mention the promotions.
“So this was a scheme to get Cash out, vacate the position, and put you in. Right? All those pressers where he didn’t defend Cash, left her to twist in the wind. All those things he said giving credence to the racism narrative? Usually, the police protect their own, but he did just the opposite.”
Barsconi frowned. “No, no, it wasn’t like that at all. You’ve got it all wrong.”
Of course she wouldn’t be admitting to that, Twen supposed—-but when the facts were laid out, the viewers would put two and two together.
The story would be a sensation: Cash, one of the first women detectives in the Portland CID, was forced out and replaced with someone the chief was sleeping with.
The Shrek dolls thing was the icing on the cake.
Not to mention they had also unfairly disciplined her partner.
Twen continued, “You see, Monty Rex told me what actually happened: The French Canadian guy was high on meth and threatening people in the street—-but here’s the thing: He was holding a knife.
He refused to put it down. But the knife wasn’t mentioned in your interview with the press, was it?
And Mezey failed to mention the knife either.
Somehow that crucial bit of information got buried or lost and the narrative was all about police escalation and overreaction.
And then,” they said, “the knife and the log of it disappeared from the evidence room.”
Barsconi stood sharply and snatched up the picture.
“I have more copies, Detective Barsconi,” Twen said.
Barsconi frantically looked around, seeming to weigh her options. “What are you going to do?”
“Since this Maine incident has become a big deal, I’m going to air the true story of what actually happened to Frankie Cash. With that photo. On how unfairly she was treated.”
Barsconi grabbed her black--flap Chanel purse from the table. “You’ll regret this,” she seethed, and stomped away.
Twen was glad to see that those nine oysters were still sitting on their bed of crushed ice, undisturbed, along with the lobster tail. They began to dig in, smiling to themselves through mouthfuls of seafood, thinking of their story and not regretting anything at all.