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Chapter 36
AS CONKLIN WENT TO SEARCH Madison’s room, I skimmed the nanny’s diary.
Paola wrote in beautiful script, using symbols and emoticons to punctuate her exclamatory writing style.
Even a cursory look through the pages told me that Paola Ricci loved America.
She raved about the cafés and shops on Fillmore Street, saying she couldn’t wait for nicer weather so that she and her friends could sit outside like she did at home.
She went on for pages about outfits she’d seen in shop windows, and she quoted her San Francisco friends on men, clothes, and media stars.
When mentioning her friends, Paola used only their initials, leading me to guess that she was smoking pot with ME and LK on her nanny’s nights out.
I looked for references to Henry Tyler, and Paola referred to him infrequently, but when she did, she called him “Mr. B.”
However, she embellished the initial of someone she called “G.”
Paola reported charged looks and sightings of “G,” but I got the clear impression that whoever he was, she was more anticipating having sex with “G” than actually having it.
The person mentioned most often in Paola’s diary was Maddy. That’s where I really saw Paola’s love for the child. She’d even pasted some of Madison’s drawings and poems onto the pages.
I read nothing about plans, assignations, or vengeance.
I closed Paola’s little red book, thinking it was the journal of an innocent abroad.
Or maybe she’d planted this diary to make us think so.
Henry Tyler followed Conklin and me out to the front step. He grabbed my arm.
“I appreciate your downplaying this for my wife, but I understand why you’re here. Something may have already happened to my daughter. Please, keep me up to date on everything. And I insist that you tell me the truth.”
I gave the distraught Henry Tyler my cell phone number and promised to check in often during the day. Techs were wiring up the Tylers’ phone lines, and inspectors from the Major Crimes Squad were canvassing the houses on Washington Street when Conklin and I left.
We drove to Alta Plaza Park, a historic, terraced gem of a place with breathtaking views.
Along with the nannies and toddlers and dog owners recreating within the park’s tranquil greens were cops doing interviews.
Conklin and I joined the canvass, and between us all, we talked to every nanny and child who knew Madison, including one nanny with the initials ME, the friend Paola had mentioned in her diary.
Madeline Ellis broke into tears, telling us about her fear for Paola and Maddy.
“It’s like everything I know has been turned upside down,” she said. “This place is supposed to be safe!”
Madeline rocked the carriage with a baby inside, her voice choking as she said, “She’s a nice girl. And she’s very young for her age.”
She told us that the “G” in Paola’s diary was George, last name unknown, a waiter at the Rhapsody Café. He had flirted with Paola, and she with him — but Madeline was positive that Paola and George had never had a date.
We found George Henley working the tables outside the Rhapsody Café on Fillmore, and we questioned him. We drilled him, tried to scare him, but my instincts told me he wasn’t involved in a kidnapping or a murder.
He was a kid, just a regular kid, working his way through night school, trying to get his degree in fine arts.
George wiped his hands on his apron, took Paola’s driver’s license from my hand, looked at her picture.
“Oh, sure. I’ve seen her around here with her girlfriends,” he said. “But until this minute, I never knew her name.”
Chapter 37
THE SUN WAS GOING DOWN on Pacific Heights as we left the apartment of a handyman named Willy Evans who lived over the garage of one of the Tylers’ neighbors. Evans was a creep with unbelievably dirty fingernails and two dozen terrariums inhabited by snakes and lizards. But as slithery as Willy Evans was, he had a solid alibi for the time Madison and Paola were abducted.
