Moore looked back at them fleetingly, then dropped his eyes to the docket.

"All right. What do you say we set this matter soon, say Monday, November seventeenth?"

Yuki said, "That's good for the People, Your Honor."

But Blanco had a different idea. "Your Honor, Mr. Brinkley has a long history of mental illness. He should be evaluated pursuant to 1368 to determine his competence to stand trial."

Moore dropped his hands to his desktop, sighed, and said, "Okay, Ms. Blanco. Dr. Charlene Everedt is back from vacation. She told me this morning that she's got some free time. She'll do the psych on Mr. Brinkley."

His eyes went to Yuki. "Ms. Castellano, is it?"

"Yes, Your Honor. This is a delaying tactic," she said, her words coming out clipped and fast, her usual rat-a-tat style. "Defense counsel wants to get her client out of the public eye so that the media flap will die down. Ms. Blanco knows perfectly well that Mr. Brinkley is quite competent to stand trial. He shot and killed four people. He turned himself in. He confessed of his own volition.

"The People want and deserve a speedy trial -"

"I understand what the People want, Ms. Castellano," said the judge, countering her verbal machine gun with a patient drawl. "But we'll get a quick turnaround from Dr. Everedt. Shouldn't take more than a few days. I think the People can wait that long, don't you?"

Yuki said, "Yes, sir," and as the judge said, "Next case," to his clerk, Yuki left the courtroom through the vestibule and out the double courtroom doors.

She turned right, down the dingy marble hall toward her office, hoping that the court-appointed shrink would see what she and Lindsay knew to be true.

Alfred Brinkley might be crazy, but he wasn't legally insane.

He was a premeditated killer four times over. Soon enough, if all went well, the prosecution would get their chance to prove it.

Chapter 33

I TOSSED THE KEYS TO CONKLIN and got into the passenger-side door of the squad car.

Conklin whistled nervously through his teeth as we pulled onto Bryant, headed north on Sixth Street for a few blocks, then went across Market Street and north toward Pacific Heights.

"If there was ever a thing that would make you not want to have kids, this is it," he said.

"Otherwise?"

"I'd want a whole tribe."

We theorized about the kidnapping – whether or not there really had been a murder and if the nanny could have played a part in the abduction.

"She was inside," I said. "She would've known everything that went on in the household. How much money they had, their patterns and movements. If Madison trusted her, the abduction would have been a piece of cake."

"So why pop the nanny?" said Conklin.

"Well, maybe she outlived her usefulness."

"One less person to cut in on the ransom. Still, to shoot her in front of the little girl."

"Was it the nanny?" I asked. "Or did they shoot the child?"

We lapsed into silence as we turned onto Washington, one of the prettiest streets in Pacific Heights.

The Tyler house stood in the middle of the tree-lined block, a stately Victorian, pale yellow with gingerbread under the eaves and plants cascading over the sides of the flower boxes. It was a dream house, the kind of place you never imagined being visited by terror.

Conklin parked at the curb, and we took the Napa stone path six steps up to the front-door landing.

I lifted the brass knocker and let it fall against the striker plate on the old oak door, knowing that inside this beautiful house were two people absolutely steeped in fear and grief.

Chapter 34

HENRY TYLER OPENED THE FRONT DOOR, paling as he seemed to recognize my face. I held up my badge.

"I'm Sergeant Boxer and this is Inspector Conklin -"

"I know who you are," he said to me. "You're Cindy Thomas's friend. From homicide."

"That's right, Mr. Tyler, but please… we don't have any news about your daughter."

"Some other inspectors were here earlier," he said, showing us down a carpeted hallway to a sumptuous living room furnished authentically in 1800s style – antiques and Persian rugs and paintings of people and their dogs from an earlier time. A piano was angled toward the windows and a zillion-dollar panoramic view of the bay.

Tyler invited us to sit, taking a seat across from us on a velvet camelback sofa.

"We're here because a witness to the kidnapping heard a gunshot," I said.

"A gunshot?"

"We have no reason to think Madison has been harmed, Mr. Tyler, but we need to know more about your daughter and Paola Ricci."

Elizabeth Tyler entered the room, dressed in beige silk and fine wool, her eyes puffy and red from crying. She sat down beside her husband and clasped his hand.

"The sergeant just told me that the woman who saw Madison kidnapped heard a gunshot!"

"Oh, my God," said Elizabeth Tyler, collapsing against her husband.

I explained the situation again, doing my best to calm Madison 's parents, saying we knew only that a gun had been fired. I left out any mention of blood against glass.

After Mrs. Tyler had composed herself, Conklin asked if they'd noticed anyone who seemed out of place hanging around the neighborhood.

"I never saw a thing out of the ordinary," Tyler said.

"We watch out for one another in this neighborhood," said Elizabeth. "We're unabashed snoops. If any of us had seen anything suspicious, we would have called the police."

We asked the Tylers about their movements over the past days and about their habits – when they left the house, when they went to bed at night.

"Tell me about your daughter," I said. "Don't leave anything out."

Mrs. Tyler brightened for a moment. "She's a very happy little girl. Loves dogs. And she's a musical genius, you know."

"I saw a video. She was playing the piano," I said.

"Do you know she has synesthesia?" Elizabeth Tyler asked me.

I shook my head. "What is synesthesia?"

"When she hears or plays music, the notes appear to her in color. It's a fantastic gift -"

"It's a neurological condition," Henry Tyler said impatiently. "It has nothing to do with her abduction. This has got to be about money. What else could it be?"

"What can you tell us about Paola?" I asked.

"She spoke excellent English," Tyler said. "She's been with us only a couple of months. When was it, sweetie?"

"September. Right after Mala went home to Sri Lanka. Paola was highly recommended," Mrs. Tyler said. "And Maddy took to her instantly."

"Do you know any of Paola's friends?"

"No," Mrs. Tyler told us. "She wasn't allowed to bring anyone to the house. She had Thursdays and Sunday afternoons off, and what she did on those days, I'm sorry, we really don't know."

"She was always on her cell phone," Tyler said. " Madison told me that. So she had to have friends. What are you suggesting, Inspector? You think she was behind this?"

"Does that seem possible to you?"

"Sure," said Tyler. "She saw how we live. Maybe she wanted some of this for herself. Or maybe some guy she was seeing put her up to it."

"Right now, we can't rule anything out," I said.

"Whatever it takes, whoever did it," Henry Tyler said, his wife starting to break down beside him, "just please find our little girl."