He said, "Little girl, age five, was going to the park with her nanny at nine this morning when they were snatched. The nanny is Paola Ricci, here on a work visa from Cremona, Italy. The child is Madison Tyler."

"Of the Chronicle Tylers?" I asked.

"Yep. Henry Tyler is the little girl's father."

"Did you say there's a witness to the kidnapping?"

"That's right, Boxer. A woman walking her schnauzer before going to work saw a figure in a gray coat exit a black minivan outside Alta Plaza Park on Scott Street."

"What do you mean, 'figure'?" Conklin asked.

"All she could say was a person in a gray coat, didn't know if it was a man or a woman because said person was turned away from her and she only looked up for a second. Likewise, she couldn't identify the make of the vehicle. Said it happened too fast."

"And what makes this a possible homicide?" I asked.

"The witness said that as soon as the car rounded Divisadero, she heard a pop. Then she saw blood explode against the back window of the van."

JACOBI CLICKED HIS MOUSE a few times, then swung the laptop around so Conklin and I could see the video that was playing on the screen.

"This is Madison Tyler," he said.

The camera was focused on a small blond-haired child who came out from behind curtains onto a stage. She was wearing a simple navy-blue velvet dress with a lace collar, socks, and shiny red Mary Janes.

She was absolutely the prettiest little girl I'd ever seen, with a look of intelligence in her eyes that canceled any notion that she was a baby pageant queen.

Applause filled Jacobi's office as the little girl climbed onto a piano seat in front of a Steinway grand.

The clapping died away, and she began to play a piece of classical music I didn't recognize, but it was complicated and the child didn't seem to make any mistakes.

She finished the piece with a flourish, stretching her arms as far as they could go down the keyboard, releasing the last notes to loud bravos and rousing applause.

Madison turned and said to the audience, "I'll be able to do much better when my arms grow."

Fond laughter bubbled over the speakers, and a boy of about nine came out from the wings and gave her a bouquet.

"Have the parents gotten a call?" I asked, tearing my eyes from the video of Madison Tyler.

"It's still early, but no, they haven't heard anything from anyone," said Jacobi. "Not a single word. Nothing about a ransom so far."

CINDY THOMAS WAS WORKING from the home office she'd set up in the small second bedroom of her new apartment. CNN was providing ambient sound as she typed, immersed in the story she was writing about Alfred Brinkley's upcoming trial. She thought of not answering the phone when it rang next to her elbow.

Then she glanced at the caller ID – and grabbed the phone off the hook.

"Mr. Tyler?" she said.

Henry Tyler's voice was eerily hollow, nearly unrecognizable. She almost thought he was playing a joke, but that wasn't his style.

Listening hard, gasping and saying, "No… oh, no," she tried hard to understand the man who was crying, losing his thoughts, and having to ask Cindy what he'd been saying.

"She was wearing a blue coat," Cindy prompted.

"That's right. A dark-blue coat, red sweater, blue pants, red shoes."

"You'll have copy in an hour," Cindy said, "and by then you'll have heard from those bastards saying how much you have to pay to get Maddy back. You will get her back."

Cindy said good-bye to the Chronicle's associate publisher, put down the receiver, and sat still for a moment, gripping the armrests, reeling from a sickening feeling of fear. She'd covered enough kidnappings to know that if the child wasn't found today, the chances of finding her alive dropped by about half. It would drop by half again if she wasn't found tomorrow.

She thought back to the last time she'd seen Madison, at the beginning of the summer when the little girl had come to the office with her father.

For about twenty minutes Madison had twirled around in the chair across from Cindy's desk, scribbling on a steno pad, pretending that she was a reporter who was interviewing Cindy about her job.

"Why is it called a 'deadline'? Do you ever get afraid when you're writing about bad guys? What's the dumbest story you ever wrote?"

Maddy was a delightful kid, funny and unspoiled, and Cindy had felt aggrieved when Tyler 's secretary had returned, saying, "Come on, Madison. Miss Thomas has work to do."

Cindy had impetuously kissed the child on the cheek, saying, "You're as cute as ten buttons, you know that?"

And Madison had flung her arms around her neck and returned the kiss.

"See you in the funny papers," Cindy had called after her, and Madison Tyler had spun around, grinning. "That's where I'll be!"

Now Cindy turned her eyes to her blank computer screen, paralyzed with thoughts of Madison being held captive by people who didn't love her, wondering if the girl was tied up inside a car trunk, if she'd been sexually molested, if she was already dead.

Cindy opened a new file on her computer and, after a few false starts, felt the story unspool under her fingers. "The five-year-old daughter of Chronicle associate publisher Henry Tyler was abducted this morning only blocks from her house…."

She heard Henry Tyler in her head, his voice choked with misery: "Write the story, Cindy. And pray to God we'll have Madison back before we run it."

YUKI CASTELLANO SAT three rows back in the gallery of Superior Court 22, waiting for the clerk to call the case number.

She'd been with the DA's office only about a month, and although she'd worked as a defense attorney in a top law firm for several years, switching to the prosecution side was turning out to be dirtier, more urgent, and more real than defending white-collar clients in civil lawsuits.

It was exactly what she wanted.

Her former colleagues would never believe how much she was enjoying her new life "on the dark side."

The purpose of today's hearing was to set a trial date for Alfred Brinkley. There was an ADA in the office whose job it was to attend no-brainer proceedings like this one and keep the master calendar.

But Yuki didn't want to delegate a moment of this case.

She'd been picked by senior ADA Leonard Parisi to be his second chair in a trial that mattered very much to Yuki. Alfred Brinkley had murdered four people. It was sheer luck that he hadn't also killed Claire Washburn, one of her dearest friends.

She glanced down the row of seats, past the junkies and child abusers, their mothers and girlfriends, the public defenders in ad hoc conferences with their clients.

Finally she homed in on Public Defender Barbara Blanco, who was whispering to the ferry shooter. Blanco was a smart woman who, like herself, had drawn a hell of a card in Alfred Brinkley.

Blanco had pleaded Brinkley "not guilty" at his arraignment and was certainly going to try to get his confession tossed out before the trial. She would contend that Brinkley was bug-nuts during the crime and had been medicated ever since. And she'd work to get him kicked out of the penal system and into the mental-health system.

Let her try.

The clerk called the case number, and Yuki's pulse quickened as she closed her laptop and walked to the bench.

Alfred Brinkley followed meekly behind his attorney, looking clean-cut and less agitated than he had at his arraignment – which was all to the good.

Yuki opened the wooden gate between the gallery and the court proper, and stood at the bench with Blanco and Brinkley, looking up into the slate-blue eyes of Judge Norman Moore.