Quinn himself is a regular now. Double tall lattes are still his favorite.
I keep pressing the detective to let me help him solve another crime, but after I almost got myself shot, he warned me to stick with coffee from now on and leave murder to the professionals.
Which brings me to the case at hand—
Unlike Anabelle Hart, Richard Engstrum, Senior, survived his fall down the Blend steps. He was hospitalized for a few weeks, but that didn’t deter the District Attorney’s Office from charging him with murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault, and a host of lesser charges including unlawful entry. (It turned out Engstrum had taken the front door key right off Anabelle’s ballet-charm key ring the night he assaulted her. When Quinn and I found the key ring in her purse the next day, it appeared untouched, so we never checked each and every Blend key to see if one was missing.)
“The Manhattan DA is piling it on Engstrum,” was how Quinn characterized the many charges.
Engstrum’s lawyers took one look at the photograph of the victim—pretty, young, talented, pregnant, and dead Anabelle Hart—and their client—a businessman with a bubble-like IPO that made him rich while taking his investors on a one-way ride to Suckersville—and urged Richard Engstrum to accept a plea bargain.
Given the fact that my testimony combined with the DNA testing on Anabelle’s fetus would have sunk him in front of a jury, he did the wise thing and agreed. Though his sentence is still pending, Quinn tells me he will probably get twelve years of hard time for assault and criminally negligent homicide, and attempted murder. But that’s not all he was in for…
Mrs. Darla Branch Hart got what she wanted, too, even if Mrs. Engstrum did not. You see, Anabelle’s stepmother filed a ten-million-dollar wrongful death suit against Richard Engstrum, Senior. This news even made the pages of The New York Times.
It was one of the few times a New Yorker with the Engstrums’ Upper East Side address didn’t want the Times’ attention—I tell ya, publicity’s a real bitch when it’s the wrong kind.
The Village Blend was mentioned in the papers, too. The New York Post headline said our coffee was “to die for.”
“Aw shucks,” I told the reporter, “it’s all in the grounds.”
But even with my tasseography, I didn’t see this one coming. I mean, I remember Anabelle telling me she’d learned how to handle garbage. As a nude dancer, I have no doubt she thought she could. One kind of garbage. The obvious kind. Just not the other.
As I’ve said before, packaging can be deceiving. Anabelle’s mistake was not understanding that there was a kind of garbage that masks its odor with five-hundred-dollar-an-ounce toiletries. And the hard truth is, when you decide that you’re clever enough to play with garbage—bad smelling or sweet smelling—you’re fooling yourself if you think you can walk away without some of it rubbing its stink off on you.
I just wish Anabelle had stuck to the high road. She was a diligent worker. She had the seeds of good character. And she had come so close to achieving her dream. But sticking to the high road can be a difficult business, even for good people. The altitude alone can exhaust you.
Not long after these events, I opened the Blend one morning to find Dr. Foo waiting. We made our usual small talk, but he saw I was rather low. When he asked me why, I confided everything I’d learned about Anabelle. Not her death—he already knew about that—but her fall.
He said he was sorry, and he also said something about how he himself was still learning how to accept that sometimes, no matter how hard we try, we cannot help the people we care about. As a medical resident working in St. Vincent’s intensive care unit, he’d had many challenges along those lines.
“How do you cope?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I guess I find a way to grieve then try to let it go. Like the Buddhist saying, ‘You must close the book.’”
“I guess there’s something to that,” I admitted. “I mean, life goes on, and the people who are still alive need you.”
“Just as the people in your life need you,” he said.
And so I grieved for Anabelle Hart, and I still remember her in my prayers, but I accept that it is now time to close her book.
To me, she will always be young and beautiful and graceful—and sadly—misguided and ruined and dead. I just hope she felt a measure of peace when the crime of her murder was solved, and that wherever she is now, she has perpetual music and an unending expanse of smooth and level floor.
Recipes from The Village Blend
Place a very thin slice of orange at the bottom of a cup.Pour a steaming hot, dark-roasted coffee (Italian or French roast) onto the orange slice.Stir with a cinnamon stick, which remains in the cup to continue flavoring the beverage. Let steep for a minute.Add a dollop of sweetened whipped cream and sprinkle cinnamon to taste. (Additional sugar is optional.)
1½ ounces raspberry syrup
1½ ounces raspberry syrup
2 ounces freshly made espresso
7 ounces steamed milk
Sweetened whipped cream
Sweetened ground cocoa
Shaved chocolate curls
Raspberries
Pour the syrups into the bottom of a 12-ounce cup.Add the espresso.Fill with steamed milk.Stir the liquid, lifting from the bottom to bring the syrups up.Top with sweetened whipped cream, sweetened ground cocoa, and curls of shaved chocolate. Serve on a saucer with raspberries.
(Or, what to do with your leftover espresso!)
1 cup finely chopped walnuts
1 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons butter, melted
32 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 eggs
¼ cup sour cream
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
½ cup strongly brewed espresso (bean optional)
1 teaspoon instant coffee
TOPPING FOR CHEESECAKE
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
? cup heavy cream
¼ cup espresso
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 tablespoon cinnamon
Sugar to taste
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.Combine walnuts, 2 tablespoons of sugar, and the butter in a bowl and mix well. Pour mixture into 9-inch springform pan and press onto bottom. Set aside.In a food processor combine cream cheese and the rest of the cup of sugar. Mix until light and fluffy and completely combined.Add flour and eggs, one at a time.Add sour cream and cinnamon.Dissolve the instant coffee into the espresso, then add to cream cheese mixture.Pour into the pan and bake for approximately 1 hour (some ovens may require ten to fifteen extra minutes). Shake gently to test. Cake will be firm when done. Top will be lightly browned. Cool completely.
TOPPING
Heat all ingredients and stir until melted.Drizzle topping over the cooled cheesecake.Chill cheesecake before serving.
A cocktail made with two parts vodka and one part coffee-flavored liqueur (such as Kahlua). Serve over ice. For a White Russian, add cream.