Questions Linger After Recovery of Infant : Crime: Police have interviewed the 6-month-old girl’s alleged kidnaper but remain uncertain of her motive. The baby’s mother knew the suspect as the ‘Avon lady.’

The baby is home with her mother. Her alleged abductor is in jail, held on suspicion of kidnaping.

And police were still puzzled Tuesday about what might have prompted a woman--a mother with seven children of her own--to allegedly snatch tiny Jessica Flores from the couch of her Highland Park home last Friday.

Over the weekend, police say, the missing 6-month-old was kept by a woman known to the child’s mother--Martina Lara Rincon, 27--only as “the Avon lady,” a four-time visitor who had previously shown up to sell cosmetics.

Police have identified the kidnaping suspect as Carmela Bautista, 36, who was taken into custody Monday night after a tip from a neighbor who saw the mother’s plea on Spanish-language television.

Los Angles Police Lt. Alex Raul Vega said detectives will ask prosecutors today to charge Bautista with kidnaping. And though Vega said Bautista made a statement to police, they remain puzzled.

“I don’t have a motive,” said Vega. “Our feeling is she was going to keep the baby and not return it.”

Wearily greeting neighbors in her cramped residence Tuesday, Rincon said she did not know Bautista by name, but does recall the strong interest the woman seemed to take in Jessica every time she came to the house.

“The lady likes the baby,” Rincon said through an interpreter. “She came here and carried the baby. She said her kids were big--and boys.”

Police said Bautista is the mother of seven children, none of whom live with her. She has no known criminal record.

Rincon said she had bought Avon perfume only once from Bautista. It remains unclear whether the suspect was actually affiliated with Avon. Company officials doubt that there is a connection, but police say they are still checking on her affiliation. Witnesses said she also sold Mary Kay cosmetics, Vega said.

As her mother talked to visitors Tuesday inside the house on North Avenue 50, Jessica stood wobbily on teh same brown plaid couch that police believe she was abducted from. That is where Rincon had last seen her daughter until the two were reunited Monday.

Rincon had briefly left her daughter in the care of two housemates, Jose Carlos and his daughter, while she went to the corner store a few doors away for soda. As she left the house, Rincon said, Bautista was approaching the porch. The “Avon lady” told Rincon she would wait for her.

The housemates, who went briefly to the kitchen after Rincon left, returned to the living room to find Jessica gone.

Rincon said she was an emotional wreck for the entire weekend, neither sleeping nor eating while Jessica was missing. “I feel happy and thank God and the police and the people who helped,” she said.

It was the mother’s plea in her native Spanish, broadcast on Spanish-language television, that broke the case.

Lt. Vega said Channel 34 aired the mother’s plea at 6 p.m. Monday. A neighbor called with the suspect’s phone number soon after, and the baby was recovered two hours later from a 13-year-old who was caring for her.

The teen-ager was baby-sitting for Bautista, police said, and is not a suspect.