“There was…” I stopped myself, unsure of what to say. I knew that I shouldn’t reveal anything about Melissa, since the police had yet to release an official statement. “The incident is under investigation. That’s all I know,” I lied, glancing at my watch. “I’d better get to my seat.”
As I sipped my coffee, I scanned the room for Kirk Mason and listened to Sandra introduce herself to her audience. Among the twenty people in the room, I knew Mason wouldn’t be there, but I’d keep looking for him until he was apprehended. Everywhere I went, he’d be a shadow lurking on the fringes of my vision.
Shifting my thoughts, I directed my focus to Sandra.
“You all probably know that the first paper was made by the ancient Egyptians; the word ‘paper’ deriving from the name of the papyrus plant. The Egyptians pressed sliced, wet sections of papyrus stems together and then dried them. Paper that we are familiar with today is made of pulped cellulose fibers like wood, cotton, or flax.” She pointed to two large containers on the table beside her. “Today, we’re going to press paper out of cotton and hemp. The result will be thicker and more fibrous paper than what you usually use, but we can adjust that by the amount of processing we apply, and we’ll add some decorative elements into it, like flower petals and seeds. The hemp and the cotton have been soaking overnight, and the hemp has also been cooked with some soda ash, so they are ready to be turned into paper. When they’re pressed, we’ll do a quick dry with some blow-dryers, but they won’t be completely dry until tomorrow.”
She continued to describe the step-by-step process of producing paper, which included mashing the pulp in a blender, adding dye if desired, and pressing the pulp between towels in the large paper press.
“Now we’re all going to get our hands into it and make some paper. Half of you come to the hemp, the rest to the cotton.”
I now understood why registration was limited for this workshop. We each had to wait our turn at the press, adding our unique character to the paper using dye or flower petals. I chose to make hemp paper, since Trey worked with the material for other purposes at the co-op and I thought it would be fun to write him a note on it. I crumbled some dried cornflower petals into mine and pressed in a few thin stems as well.
The ninety minutes allotted for the workshop went by quickly. Proudly carrying my homemade paper, I sought out Makayla at the Espresso Yourself kiosk. Business had slowed down when I arrived, and there were only two customers in line.
“Look what I made,” I said to her after she handed a chai latte to the person in front of me. I held out my sheet of paper, the blue cornflower petals providing a striking contrast to the textured, slightly beige speckled paper. I felt a little like a schoolgirl showing off her project, but I was proud of what I had produced.
“That’s beautiful,” Makayla said, stroking the soft, fibrous sheet. “Are you going to pen some sweet nothings to a certain hunky policeman using that special paper?” She wriggled her eyebrows.
My peripheral vision caught a movement of black, and I immediately turned, thinking the shadow might be Kirk Mason. A woman wearing a black sweater walked past us toward the exit. I exhaled in relief and then saw that I’d gripped my homemade paper so tightly that a deep crease had formed in the right-hand corner.
“Girl, you’re as jittery as a fly in a pond full of frogs,” Makayla said, touching my shoulder. “Not that I blame you, considering what happened yesterday. I’m going to make you a nice peppermint tea. I’m cutting off your caffeine supply.”
The refreshing mint of the tea did calm me, even while I told Makayla about the events of the previous day. As I went on to explain why I was sure that Kirk Mason was the murderer, she frowned.
“I wouldn’t put all my eggs in one basket,” she countered gently. “Like I already told the police, baristas are keen observers. Yesterday, for example, I saw Melissa Plume arguing with another woman right at this very table.” She tapped her finger on the tabletop. “And how could I not remember Melissa? When that woman ordered a caramel latte and I turned and looked at her, you could have knocked me over with a feather. She was your twin, Lila! Melissa introduced herself and we got to talking. She seemed like a great gal.” Her face lost its typical illumination for a moment. “What a terrible shame.”
“It’s amazing how alike we were,” I noted sadly, but if Makayla was aware of another suspect, I needed to be fully briefed. “How did the argument start?”
“Melissa was sitting here reading through some notes when this other woman plunked herself down in the chair opposite her. After a few minutes, things got tense between them and the other woman kept pointing her finger angrily at Melissa. I was busy with other customers so I didn’t hear what they were saying, but they were causing quite a ruckus. Then the other woman got up, knocking her chair over, and shouted, ‘You’ll regret this!’ And then she ran off. Made quite a spectacle of herself.”
“What did Melissa do?”