Murder Most Frothy

Nine

After checking my other tables, I returned to Madame’s and found the happy couple had moved off the topic of romantic coffee legends and onto a discussion about the restaurant’s decor.

“Quite a delight,” said Edward, gesturing to the mosaic clock at the top of the staircase. “I mean, just look at that surrealist piece up there. It gives the impression of an actual timepiece, yet its arms are turning, turning, turning, so quickly, as if its gears were caffeinated. Perfect!”

Okay, I thought, begrudgingly impressed, give the man points for noticing.

I transferred the contents of my silver tray onto the marble-topped cafe table: the four-cup French press, the Waterford crystal timer for the brewing process, and the slices of fig cake and almond torte on hand-painted plates.

Edward shook his head as he continued. “Touches of artistic whimsy like that timepiece…you just don’t see much out here anymore. It’s all gone vague and predictable. They’re razing our brilliant, off-beat architectural history like Motherwell’s Quonset hut, and replacing it with mock shingle-style cottages, for god’s sake.”

Despite my determination to find fault with Mr. Wilson, I couldn’t help seriously considering his observation. The Quonset hut he’d mentioned was one I remembered from my architectural history classes.

“Did you actually see it?” I asked Edward, unable to curb my curiosity. “The Quonset hut.”

Madame chuckled softly.

“Yes, my dear,” Edward answered. “I’ve seen it.”

The Quonset hut represented an important era of Hamptons’ history. If this man had taken the trouble to see it, I knew he at least cared about that history.

The avant-garde structure had been built in the 1940s as an East Hampton home and studio for the artist Robert Motherwell. Motherwell had come out to this area with the wave of artists who’d followed the world-renowned Abstract Expressionist painter Jackson Pollack. He needed a place to live and work, so he hired the modernist architect Pierre Chareau to design it. Chareau had been an accomplished architect in France until Hitler’s forces invaded and he’d fled to America. Just like Madame, who’d fled occupied Paris with her family when she was just a young girl, Chareau had left in a hurry, carrying no possessions and hardly any money.

Motherwell didn’t have much money either, so for cheap building materials they purchased two war surplus Quonset kits. Then they scrounged, adapted, or invented features to complete the structure. I still remember the photos of the home’s exterior in my college textbook: the long curving roof of the half-cylindrical building, the wall of windows.

“I’ve always wondered what it would be like to live in a house like that,” I mused.

Edward took it as a question.

“It was an open and free-flowing space,” he informed me, his bright blue eyes animated. “It was futuristic, a subversive challenge to conventional floor plans. There was a wonderful freestanding brick fireplace at one end of the living room and a small open kitchen at the other. Above you, the ribs of the building were exposed, those wonderful curving steel crossbeams that supported the roof, and Motherwell had painted them with a bright red lacquer so you felt as if a giant mobile was dangling high above you. The natural light was marvelous. Thirty-six feet of windows, salvaged from a commercial greenhouse. In the dead of winter, there was enough heat from the sunlight to keep the space fairly warm—they’d actually created solar heating without intending to. And when it rained, the water would flow over those overlapping panes of glass in a mesmerizing waterfall.”

The way Edward spoke, with such deeply felt passion, I could see how easily a woman might find herself swept away. Even now, Madame was gazing at him with what appeared to be her own deeply felt passion—which, I had a hunch, had very little to do with Motherwell’s Quonset hut.

“It sounds amazing,” I told Edward sincerely. “I had wanted to see it with my own eyes when I came out here. But when I asked around—”

“You found out it was bulldozed in 1985,” Edward finished for me. “You know why? The new, wealthy owner wanted a more conventional structure for his summer weekends.”

“It’s so strange what’s happened out here,” I said, thinking of what my dear old bookie dad might have said. “It’s money laundering in reverse. The new money is attempting to look old.”

“It’s a bankruptcy of creative design is what it is,” said Edward in disgust. “Most architects are sick about it, but they want to be successful, and these people with money don’t have the sense of adventure the modernists did. They’re simply desperate to fit in. ‘Build me something that looks like it’s been around for one hundred years. And make it really, really big.’”

“This generation supersizes everything, darling,” Madame replied with a dismissive shrug. “Get used to it.”

“Ah, but that’s the beauty of old age,” Edward countered. “I don’t have to get used to anything. I’ll be checking out of this daft hotel soon enough.”

“Don’t be morbid,” Madame scolded, then she smiled up at me. “Clare, I think my friend needs a jolt of caffeine. What do you think?”

I nodded and checked the crystal timer. The last grains of sand were just running out. I gently pushed down the plunger on the French press, forcing the coarsely ground Sul de Minas to the bottom of the glass cylinder.

“There, you see, pointless ends are everywhere,” said Edward. He gestured to my press with a grave little sigh, his elderly frame sagging a bit, as if the draining sand of the timer had just defeated everything he held dear. “Those beans have just gone the way of Motherwell’s Quonset hut.”

“On the contrary,” I replied, pouring out their cups, a little in Edward’s, a little in Madame’s, until both were equally filled. “Those Brazilian cherries have just spent the last fraction of their lives infusing the hot water around them with their essence, a memorable burst of flavor that will bring joy and energy to those who drink it. In the scheme of things, I’d say that’s not a pointless end at all.”

Edward’s face slowly brightened. He turned to Madame. “My goodness, you didn’t tell me I’d get philosophy with my coffee service.”

“We aim to please,” I said.

“You did, my dear.” Edward clapped his hands. “Very good.”

“Didn’t I tell you my daughter-in-law was something?” said Madame with a wink for me. “Well, she isn’t finished yet, so settle down, Edward.”

As the couple picked up their cups and sipped, I continued. “This Sul de Minas comes from a family-owned farm. In this medium roast, you have a flavor profile of a mellow, low-toned coffee with dry-yet-sweet, almost sugary figlike characteristics. The finish is sweet, rich, and long with a hint of cocoa and dry fruit notes.”

Edward smiled as he sipped. “That’s the finish I’d like, come to think of it. Sweet, rich, and long.”

Madame laughed. She dug into the Spanish fig cake and presented a forkful to Edward. “Taste a bit of this, then sip again.”

Edward’s eyes widened as he obeyed. “Fig! I taste it in the dessert, of course. But now I can really taste it in the coffee.”

I politely stated the obvious. “That’s why they’re paired.”

“Oh, but, Clare,” said Madame, “you have them paired with the almond torte as well, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said slowly, worried she was about to disagree with the combination. “And? What are you getting at?”

“Just this: one coffee can be paired quite naturally with two sweet things, depending on the situation.”

She glanced at Edward, then back at me, as if I were so very thick-headed I’d need help figuring out her analogy. Don’t worry, I got it. Loud and clear.

After excusing myself, I went to check on my other customers, then returned to Madame’s table to see if they needed anything more.

“Clare, didn’t I ever tell you how Edward and I met?” asked Madame. “I’m sure that I did.”

I shook my head. “No.”

“We met in Greenwich Village, at the Village Blend…a very long time ago.”

Edward sighed. “A lifetime ago.”

“Edward used to come in with a few friends of his,” Madame went on. “There was Alfonso Ossorio, Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Truman Capote, Jasper Johns, Robert Motherwell, and, of course, Pollack.”

My mouth went dry. Good god, no wonder he knew what the inside of Motherwell’s Quonset hut looked like! “So, Mr. Wilson…” I said after clearing my throat and regaining my equilibrium, “you’re a painter too?”

“Not like Pollack, not in the same league,” Edward replied. “Pollack was a genius. He was also a degenerate drunk. Then, Lee—Lee Krasner, who ended up marrying him—dragged him out here to East Hampton, got him away from the demons of the city. It sobered him up being out here. Of course, back then East Hampton was a lot different. Untouched by time, quiet, pastoral…sane. Now Pollack’s buried in Green River Cemetery over in Springs. Can’t miss his grave. It’s marked by a fifty-ton boulder.”

“But you still paint?” I asked.

“Just for myself now. It’s something I thoroughly enjoy. Of course, back then I was completely consumed by it. And, oh, I thought I was hot stuff.”

Madame laughed. “You did indeed.”

“We all did. There were hundreds of artists who moved out here after Pollack in the forties and fifties. Prices for land were dirt cheap then. And we were all rivals of Pollack’s, secretly seething with jealousy over his success and fame. But, after he flipped his car at ninety on Fireplace Road and died at forty-four, I found that though I still loved the art, I’d lost my taste for the competition.”

“Edward became a professor,” Madame informed me.

“I started writing first,” Edward corrected. “Then teaching—art history, criticism. Of course, the others I knew continued to stay in the game. There’s an old joke about de Kooning looking out his window every morning at the Green River Cemetery, just to make sure Pollack was still under that fifty-ton boulder!”

“You see, Clare,” said Madame. “Edward’s been around here forever.”

“Nearly,” said Edward, interlacing his fingers with Madame’s and bringing her hand to his lips.

“That’s why I thought he could help us with David’s little, shall we say—” Madame glanced to the full tables to her left and right—“problem.”

Problem, I thought. Yes, I’d definitely characterize a sharpshooter trying to turn you into a live target at your own party as a ‘problem.’

Madame turned to Edward. “Tell Clare what you told me…about the foreclosure and the town trustees.”

Edward nodded, leaned close and motioned me to bend toward him. “This place wasn’t sold in the regular manner.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“What Edward means is the previous owner closed the place last summer during a messy divorce,” Madame quietly informed me. “Because of tax delinquencies, this property ended up in the hands of the town itself.”

“O-kay,” I said slowly. “So how is that important?”

“How much did you tell me a single chair in a Hamptons’ restaurant makes in one season?” Madame asked.

“On average, about 180,000 dollars per chair.”

Edward gave a low whistle.

“Well,” Madame said, “don’t you think that’s enough of a reason to be fairly angry if your dream to open a restaurant here was thwarted?”

“But David did open a restaurant,” I pointed out.

“No, Clare, you’re not following me,” Madame said. “Edward told me that someone else wanted this place, too.”

“It was in the local papers over the winter,” Edward interjected. “There was a war, a bitter one over this place. It came down to two proposals. The town trustees chose David’s.”

“But what’s the big deal?” I said. “So the other bidder lost this place. It happens every day in Manhattan. Why not just move along and buy another building?”

“Edward, tell her,” Madame prompted.

He shrugged. “Here in East Hampton, you don’t just buy a building and open a restaurant. This is the Land of No, my dear. It’s governed by very strict rules to keep commercial growth down. If you’re an aspiring restaurateur, you must wait for one of the existing restaurants in the area to close, then you must outbid others for the property, and gain the approval of the myriad planning, zoning, and design appeals boards for the town.”

“Oh,” I said. “David never mentioned any of that.”

“Of course he didn’t,” Madame said. “Apparently, things got pretty ugly during the fight for the property. And David doesn’t like ugly.”

“So…who was the other bidder?” I asked.

“Bom Felloes,” Edward replied.

“That famous TV chef?” I said. “The one with the Good Felloes restaurant chains all over the country?”

“The very same,” Madame said. “Apparently, he’d been chomping at the bit to open an East Hampton Good Felloes restaurant like his others.”

“But the town trustees practically retched at the idea of a chain restaurant coming into this tony area,” Edward said. “And, quite frankly, the name didn’t help his case much.”

I could see what he meant. “Good Felloes” was a play on the celebrity chef ’s name, of course, but (as my dear old dad once told me) “goodfellows” was one of the ways Mafia “wise guys” referred to each other.

“Oh my goodness,” Madame said. “The very idea probably made the East Hampton officials turn green.”

“It’s absurd when one contemplates the fact that something as historic as Motherwell’s home and studio can be demolished, yet a new restaurant cannot be built,” Edward said with another grave sigh. “But in any case…they rejected Bom’s proposal and approved David’s. I can see why they were impressed. Just look around you. Mintzer clearly spent a great deal of time and effort on designing the decor alone.”

“Not to mention a small fortune,” I added.

“You’ve got to spend it to make it,” Madame pointed out.

“So, what else do you know about Felloes?” I asked Edward.

“Not really much more. Just that he’s a single man, young and good looking, and he bought The Sandcastle about three years ago.”

I frowned, not liking that news. “The Sandcastle? That’s right near David’s place. And it sounds like he bought it the same time David bought his land out here.”

Edward nodded. “The original Sandcastle grounds were huge. When it fell to a younger generation, they broke it into two pieces. The acreage with the residence on it was bought by Bom. David Mintzer bought the plot of land next to it and built from scratch.”

I’d never seen The Sandcastle. It was completely surrounded by a wall of high green privets, and the ornamentation on its wrought-iron front gate was so Byzantine, I couldn’t see beyond it. Certainly I was aware The Sandcastle abutted David’s property. But I didn’t know that Bom Felloes was the owner. David had never mentioned Bom—I would have remembered if he had.

I tapped my chin with my ordering pencil. “David obviously has a serious rival. But I don’t doubt the man has serious rivals in all of his businesses.”

“You think Bom wouldn’t mind seeing David under a fifty-ton gravestone?” asked Edward.

“I hope Bom isn’t the one trying to put him there,” I replied. “But I need to know more about him…a lot more.”

“Well, my dear, never fear,” chirped Madame, the caffeinated sparkle in her gaze making me understandably nervous. “Edward and I are on the case!”