The scent of spaghetti sauce followed me as I went to the back entrance where the back staircase was. I had seen most of the main floor and Ann had mentioned the sewing room upstairs. I didn't think about it at the time but somebody could very easily slip in the back door and up the stairs without anybody knowing it. That was at a time when everybody in small towns were honest and nobody locked their doors. How quickly the Clutter murders had been forgotten, but then this wasn't Kansas nor even close to it.
A fleeting shadow slithered along the upstairs wall but it didn't bother me. I hurried up the steps.
At the top the air grew warm and heavily scented of old attic mingled with the scent of the Spaghetti sauce. Usually cooking odors makes a house seem homey but the mingling of scents somehow seemed unsavory.
I glanced down a long shadowy hall that ended with two windows though I could only see one I knew the other was in front of the second staircase that went down into the living room I had noticed it on my previous visit.
There were two closed doors along the corridor, but the third and closest door stood open. I walked over and started to step inside a mini sewing factory then caught my breath and quick-stepped back out into the hall my hand over my heart.
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