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. Iearnedthat 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 werequiteclose. 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.Notfake. 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 agoodperson,” 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 washolding 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 thetruestory 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.
