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“Get in,” the man said to Paola. He was pointing a handgun at her chest.
“Either get in or kiss this kid good-bye.”
Chapter 29
RICH CONKLIN AND I had just returned to the squad room after a grim morning of investigating a brutal drive-by shooting when Jacobi waved us into his office.
We crossed the gray linoleum floor to the glass box and took our seats, Conklin perched on the edge of the credenza where Jacobi used to sit, me in the side chair next to Jacobi’s desk, watching him get comfortable in the chair that was once mine.
I was still trying to get used to this turn of events. I looked around at the mess Jacobi had made of the place in just under two weeks: newspapers piled on the floor and windowsill, food odors coming out of the trash can.
“You’re a pig, Jacobi,” I said. “And I mean that in the barnyard sense.”
Jacobi laughed, a thing he’d done more in the last few days than he’d done in the last two years, and despite the chop to my ego, I was glad that he wasn’t huffing up hills anymore. He was a great cop, good at managing the unmanageable, and I was working myself around to loving him again.
Jacobi coughed a few times, said, “We’ve got a kidnapping.”
“And we’re catching it?” Conklin asked.
“Major Crimes has been on it for a few hours, but a witness came forward and now it looks like there could be a murder,” said Jacobi. “We’ll be coordinating with Lieutenant Macklin.”
A humming sound came from the computer as Jacobi booted up, a thing he’d never done before getting his new badge. He pulled a CD off the pile of crap on his desk and clumsily slid it into the CD/DVD tray of his computer.
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.”
Chapter 30
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.”
