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priest, no more gossip. I laughed like hell, told him he should get himself a hot rod on the sly, it bothers him he can confess about it. Meanwhile he can lay rubber right in front of the church, worst case the cardinal has a stroke. He laughed, we had our lunch, end of topic. Okay?”
    “Female tenant.”
    “That’s what he said,” said Del Rios. “
She
. A woman fits with a baby. A rich boyfriend fits with an unwanted baby. What do you think, son?”
    “I think, sir, that you’re still at the top of your game.”
    “Always have been. Okay, good, now you have to get out of here, got a hot date and at my age getting ready is a production.”

CHAPTER
7
    A s I drove back to the city, Milo called a DMV supervisor to find out how far back car registrations ran.
    “Inactive records are deleted after a few months, Lieutenant.”
    “What about paper archives?”
    “Nothing like that, sir.”
    “No warehouse in Sacramento?”
    “No such thing, Lieutenant. What exactly are you looking for?”
    Milo told her.
    She said, “With a subpoena, we could give you a list of currently registered Duesenbergs. That German?”
    “American,” he said.
    “Really? I lived in Detroit, never heard of them.”
    “They haven’t been manufactured for a long time.”
    “Oh,” said the supervisor. “A historical vehicle. Would a list of current regs help?”
    “Probably not, but if it’s all I can get, I’ll settle.”
    “Send me the proper paper and it’s all yours, Lieutenant.”
    He hung up. I said, “Auburn, Indiana.”
    “What about it?”
    “It’s where Duesenbergs were built. Back in the day, cars were manufactured all over the country.”
    “My home state,” he said. “Never knew that. Never saw anything exotic.”
    “You wouldn’t unless you had rich friends. When Duesenbergs came out, they cost the equivalent of a million bucks and Father Eddie was right, they’re prime candidates for the greatest car ever made. We’re talking massive power, gorgeous custom coachwork, every screw hand-fashioned.”
    “Listen to you, amigo. What, you were once a gear-head?”
    “More like a fantasizing kid.” Who’d memorized every make and model because cars represented freedom and escape. Mentally cataloging all that information was a good time-filler when hiding in the woods, waiting out a drunken father’s rage.
    Milo tapped the tucked-leather passenger door. “Now that I think about it, this is kind of a classic buggy.”
    My daily ride’s a ’79 Seville, Chesterfield Green with a tan vinyl top that matches her interior leather. She rolled out of Detroit the last year before GM bloated the model beyond recognition, is styled well enough to help you forget she’s Caddy froufrou over a Chevy II chassis. She loves her third engine, is dependable, cushy, and makes no unreasonable demands. I see no reason to get a divorce.
    I said, “Bite your tongue. She thinks she’s still a hot number.”
    He laughed. “So how many Duesenbergs were made?”
    “I’d guess hundreds, not thousands. And chrome pipes means it was supercharged, which would narrow it down further.”
    “So getting that subpoena might be worthwhile … but then I’d need to backtrack the history of every one I find and the most I can hope for is some guy who visited the woman who lived in the house maybe at the time the baby was buried.”
    I said, “There could be a more direct way to identify her. If FatherEddie noticed the car, other neighbors probably did. Anyone who was an adult back then is likely to be deceased, but in nice neighborhoods like Cheviot, houses get passed down to heirs.”
    “A kid who dug cars,” he said. “Okay, can’t postpone the legwork any longer. You have time?”
    “Nothing but.”
    We began with properties half a mile either way from the burial site, encountered lots of surprise but no wisdom. Returning to the Ruche house, Milo knocked on the door, rang the bell, checked windows. No one home.
    I followed him to