Murder Most Frothy - By Cleo Coyle Page 0,1

as “the Hamptons,” each with its own set of beaches, permits, and restrictive (some might say fascistically elitist) parking regulations.

East Hampton was also a prime example of my detective friend’s theory. For the very wealthy who summered here, from business moguls to movie stars, old money heirs to new money wannabes, the place was a trip back in time, where neon was outlawed, scenic rural landscapes were preserved, and genteel country estates were hidden from public view by towering “stay out!” hedgerows. (Or, as the local gentry referred to them, “privets for breaking the ocean winds,” because actually admitting your aversion for allowing the general public to even peek at your property might make you appear a total snob.)

The Hamptons, it seemed to me, were about a lot of things, but mostly they were about being one hundred miles away from the gritty threats and cheap kicks of New York City. Money had carved these people another dimension, an existence of safety and beauty and taste, free of the stench of fear and crime and tackiness.

The villages were located at the end of Long Island’s South Fork, a picturesque strip of land filled with ponds, marshes, and hills. Bluewater bays stretched along its north side, the Atlantic ocean along its south.

There were hiking trails here and haute cuisine. Farm stands and a film festival. Bird sanctuaries and built-in pools. Nature preserves and tennis courts. You could find Jackson Pollack’s original, unheated studio here, as well as Quelle Barn, Steven Spielberg’s multi-million dollar East Hampton summer home, supposedly guarded by retired members of the Mossad—Israel’s secret service.

Even the light was special in the Hamptons. Artists claimed it was the peculiar shape of the landscape, the slant of the sun’s rays as they bounced off the water. Whatever it was, they could find it nowhere else, which was one reason the area had become one of America’s most famous art colonies long before La-La Land’s A-list had started driving up the real estate prices.

Hamptons’ colors actually appeared richer too (not just the people). One morning when I rose for an early swim, I found myself gaping at an azure ocean so identical to the sky above it that no horizon line presented itself—the blue seemed to go on forever.

At the moment, on the other end of Long Island, the end without pristine white beaches, most of New York City’s residents were living on top of each other in cigar-box apartments, rundown rowhouses, and public housing—all of them sweltering in the kind of relentless city heat that liquefied every ounce of energy before sucking it right out of you. Emergency sirens and shouting neighbors routinely punctured any hope of sustained tranquility, and sidewalk garbage, baking in the summer heat, fouled the air with the sort of fragrances that Calvin Klein wouldn’t be bottling anytime soon.

Because tempers rose with the temperature, muggings, burglaries, assaults, and murders were now statistically up all over the city. And Mike Quinn had been clocking a lot of overtime at the NYPD’s Sixth Precinct.

Here in East Hampton, on the other hand, police work appeared to be limited to public drunkenness, auto accidents, or the occasional actress-turned-pathological-shoplifter. Delicate breezes refreshed the residents with the vigor of salt spray. And the nights were cool, quiet, and dark enough to actually see the constellations.

This place was a dreamland, Trump-meets-Thoreau, with an ocean view. And New Yorkers who had no roots in its history bought their way in with oodles of money, staking their million-dollar claims. They had indeed violated the laws of physics, as my friend Detective Quinn had put it, and created a completely separate universe.

So what the heck was I, middle-class working stiff Clare Cosi, doing here? At the moment, I was whipping up frothy coffee concoctions for David Mintzer’s illustrious party guests.

I know, I know…in America the term “barista” has come to be associated with out-of-work actors and college coeds—never mind that Americans consume half the world’s coffee supply, about 100 billion cups a year, and on a typical day seventy percent of the population drinks it. Here barista is not the highly-respected job title it is in, for example, Italy, a country with over 200,000 espresso bars.

The truth is, I’d gotten my coffee start early. My paternal grandmother taught me how. She raised me back in Pennsylvania, where I practically lived in her little grocery, making espressos for her customers and friends with the battered stovetop pot she’d brought with her from Italy. With every cup I poured,