The Unquiet-CP-6 by John Connolly Page B

throw from where she lived, at Willard Square, just by the junction of Pillsbury and Preble. She had told me that she planned to be in the office until lunchtime, then had properties to visit in the afternoon. I watched her go inside. I had tried to keep a discreet distance from her while she drove. I hadn’t yet seen any sign of the man who was following her, but I didn’t want him to spot me with her, not yet. I wanted him to try to get close to her again, so that this time I could be waiting. If he was good, though, he’d pick me out easily, and I had already resigned myself to the fact that I would need to bring in more bodies if this thing was to be done right.
    While Rebecca worked in her office, I drove back to Scarborough, walked and fed Walter, then showered and changed my clothes. I switched cars, substituting the Mustang for a green Saturn coupe, bought coffee and a Danish in Foley’s Bakery on Route 1, and headed back to Willard. Willie Brew’s auto shop in Queens had sourced the coupe for me and sold it on for what seemed like less than it must have cost to buy the tires. It was useful as a backup at times like this, but driving it made me feel like a rube.
    “Somebody die in it?” I had asked Willie when he had first presented it to me as a possible second car.
    Willie had made a show of sniffing the interior.
    “I think it’s damp,” he had answered. “Probably. Maybe. Anyway, at what I’m asking for it, the corpse could be stuck to the seat and it would still be a bargain.”
    He was right, but it remained kind of embarrassing to drive. Then again, it was hard to be inconspicuous in a 1969 Mustang Boss 302. Even the dumbest criminal is likely to look in his rearview at some point, and think, I wonder is that the same ’69 Mustang with go-faster stripes that was behind me earlier? Hey, maybe I’m being followed!
    I checked in with Rebecca by phone, then took a walk around Willard to clear my head a little more and to pass some time. Sleeping on a couch with a cold wind whistling through a broken window wasn’t conducive to a good night’s sleep. Even after my shower, I still felt out of sync. People across the water in Portland tended to look down some on South Portland. It had been a city for only a hundred years or so, which made it a baby by Maine standards. The building of the Million Dollar Bridge, the construction of Interstate 295, and the opening of the Maine Mall had taken away some of its charm by forcing local businesses to close, but it still had a character all its own. The area in which Rebecca Clay lived used to be called Point Village, but that was way back in the 1800s and by the time South Portland became a separate entity from Cape Elizabeth in 1895 it had become known simply as Willard. It was home to ships’ captains and fishermen, descendants of whom still lived in the area to this day. During the last century, a man named Daniel Cobb used to own a lot of the land around here. He grew tobacco and apples and celery. It was also said that he was the first person to grow iceberg lettuce in the East. I walked down Willard Street to the beach. The tide was out, and the sand changed color dramatically from white to dark brown where the sea’s advance had halted. To the left, the beach stretched in a half-moon, ending at the Spring Point Ledge Light which marked the dangerous ledge on the west side of the main shipping channel into Portland Harbor. Beyond lay Cushing Island and Peaks Island, and the rust-streaked façade of Fort Gorges. To the right, a set of concrete steps led up to a pathway along the promontory that ended in a small park. A trolley line used to run down Willard Street to the beach in summer. Even after the trolley stopped running, an old refreshment stand remained near what used to be the end of the line. It dated back to the 1930s, and it was still selling food as late as the 1970s, when it was called the
    “Dory” and the Carmody family passed out hot dogs