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 likeshe 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.”
