A call to the development office at Western Peds added focus to Dr. James Asherwood’s generosity. Back in the sixties he’d endowed a small fund for the neonatal ICU.

Special concern for problem newborns on the part of a man unable to father children. A man who worked ob-gyn at a place where covert abortions were standard operating procedure.

How that connected to a baby buried under a tree eluded me.

That night the big blue Duesenberg didn’t appear in my dream but a cream-colored Auburn Boattail Speedster did. No reason to believe Jimmy Asherwood’s had been that color but I’d pulled up images on the Web, supplied my own script and scenery.

In the dream, Asherwood and a young Felix Monahan, who bore a striking resemblance to me in my twenties, roared up a series of dusty, sun-splotched canyons that snaked through the Santa Monica Mountains.

The ride ended with a smoke and a nip from a silver flask at a spot where the ocean grew vast. Then a return ride that felt more like aerial gliding than motoring.

When Asherwood dropped me at the dingy apartment building on Overland that had housed me during starving-student days, he tipped his fedora and saluted and I did the same and I assured him I’d never betray him.

His smile was blinding. “I trust you, Alex.”

The following morning Milo dropped in at nine o’clock.

Robin had left early for a trip to Temecula, visiting an old Italian violin-maker who’d finally retired and was parting with maple, ebony, and ivory. I was sitting at the kitchen table reviewing a custody report that had a decent chance of being read because the judge was a decent human being. Blanche curled at my feet relishing the shallow sleep of dogs, snoring gently. She sensed Milo’s presence before the door opened, was up on her feet waiting for him.

He said, “Ah, the security system,” patted her head, placed his attaché case on the table, and sat down.

No fridge-scavenge. Maybe he’d eaten a big breakfast.

“Time for current events, class.” Out of the case came a rolled-up newspaper. The masthead read:

The Corsair
The voice of Santa Monica College

A pair of articles shared the front page: a feature on renewed interest in the benefits of high colonics and “SMC Student Plays Crucial Role in Westside Murder.”

Heather Goldfeder’s headshot was accurately elfin. The slant was her “extreme bravery after coming across a hideously slain homicide corpse as she trained for a marathon in Cheviot Park. ‘What made it worse,’ said the SMC freshman, ‘was this wasn’t the first murder in my neighborhood, a little baby skeleton was also found in the park and there was also another baby dug up real close to where I live. Though I heard that one was real old.’ ”

I said, “Let’s hear it for freedom of the press. Maria know yet?”