Waiting, Hoping, Praying : In the city where a young girl was kidnaped in the night, they still talk of finding her. But confidence is giving way to fear.

In this town, doubt is a dirty word.

Since a knife-wielding intruder abducted 12-year-old Polly Klaas from her home Oct. 1, Petaluma has been in shock. Stunned by the crime and fearful that its peaceful, bucolic days are gone forever, the community 45 miles north of San Francisco has mobilized big time to help find the bright-eyed junior high student who was kidnaped during a slumber party.

Hundreds have been streaming into the Polly Klaas Volunteer Center, a renovated storefront downtown, and they’ve done everything from mailing posters across the nation to releasing a drawing of the suspect on computer networks from California to New York. Everything, that is, except confront the ugly possibility that Polly might be dead--or in great physical danger.

“What you’re seeing around you is ‘Polly Power,’ ” says Marianne Klaas Ford, the girl’s aunt, as more than 200 people bustle around the center. As she speaks, reporters swarm Polly’s parents, Eve Nichol and Marc Klaas, who have spent countless hours on the phone, speaking with journalists and potential tipsters across the nation.

“We’re going to find Polly,” Ford says flatly. “So we don’t have time to feel defeated.”

As he greets visitors to the center, Marc Klaas smiles bravely and continually repeats one phrase: “Pray for Polly. I know she’ll be home soon.”

It’s an infectious feeling, a militant belief that borders on spiritual certainty. Polly is coming home, family members say, and posters of support adorn the walls of the center. Indeed, raising the mere possibility of an unhappy ending strikes some as impure.

Yet most people have impure thoughts from time to time. And in Petaluma, you don’t have to dig too deeply to tap a mother lode of paranoia and skepticism. Especially as the days pass with no word from the kidnaper and no solid leads. On Thursday, investigators released a new drawing of the man they believe took Polly, based on interviews with the two girls who were with her at the time.

The vigil continued through the weekend.

“There’s definitely pessimism here, but you don’t think about it,” says Linda Tunnicliffe, owner of the Seedlings and Sprouts children’s clothing store, a few blocks from where Polly was abducted. “If you think about bad things, you come to a bad end, so what’s the value of it?”

Minutes before, Tunnicliffe taped the new sketch of the suspect to her front window. It shows a man with salt and pepper hair, a beard and lines on his forehead. A suspect in his late 30s to mid-40s who has single-handedly traumatized a town where folks used to keep their doors unlocked at night.

“You don’t hear too much about that kind of confidence anymore,” the shop owner says. “People are scared, and those feelings haven’t changed since the crime happened. Folks here want to fight back, and they won’t give up, even if the chance of finding her alive lessens by the minute.”

A customer, Doreen Thomas, walks in and offers her view: The man who kidnaped Polly is dead. She was handed over to child pornographers and they in turn executed her abductor. “Child pornography is rampant,” Thomas declares. “We don’t even hear about the kidnapings of many children.”

Down the street, a child therapist scans news racks for the latest information about Polly and shakes her head when asked about the public mood.

“If you believe what you hear, they (abducted children) are as good as gone if you don’t hear something in the first six days,” says the woman, who asks not to be identified. “People don’t express that fear in public, but it’s there. And parents are just terribly concerned about their kids. This community will never be the same.”

For years, Petaluma has been the kind of place where advertisers filmed commercials for popcorn, automobiles and fast-food hamburgers, seeking to re-create a golden mood of small-town innocence. Its quiet, tree-lined streets and modest Victorian homes contributed to that wistful American ambience.

But that’s just one side of small-town life. Nowadays, the rumor mill is working overtime. One resident, rummaging through an antique shop, speculates that the kidnaper came from nearby Mount Tamalpais, where “reclusive Vietnam vets” are thought to live in the woods. Others say Petaluma has been scarred with satanic graffiti in recent months, suggesting that Polly’s disappearance might be part of some grotesque initiation ritual.

Police and FBI agents have been hard-pressed to keep the rumors under control. So far, they’ve chased down 3,200 leads, with no luck. Thirteen federal agents are working the case full time and Northern California bureau director Mark Mershan says bringing Polly home is his top priority.

But he concedes the great difficulties: It was a stranger abduction, typically the hardest case to crack. The crime scene was unusual in that the girl was taken while two other companions were left. A younger sister, Annie, and Polly’s mother slept through the entire incident.

When the kidnaper entered the home about 10:40 p.m. and confronted the three girls in Polly’s bedroom, he asked which one lived there, a question that has puzzled investigators. He then bound all three, fleeing in what police said may be a gray Honda. A third witness claimed to have seen the suspect in the area earlier, but his descriptions have been inconclusive.

“It’s entirely possible that she was stalked for a long time, or it may be a crime of opportunity,” says Mershan. “It could have been planned for three minutes. This crime doesn’t lend itself to a typical investigation.”

Or community reaction.

While many other American towns have mobilized to find missing children, few have broken from the gate as quickly as Petaluma.

Within three days of Polly’s disappearance, her story was broadcast on “America’s Most Wanted.” National TV news also carried the story and more than 54 million pictures of the girl will be mailed out Nov. 7 by ADVO Inc., the nation’s largest direct mailer. The company, working in conjunction with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, puts photos of missing kids on the back of coupon mailing cards each week.

Meanwhile, the search has been joined by several missing-children foundations, which have offered volunteer aid and expertise. Recently, actress Winona Ryder visited Petaluma and offered a $200,000 reward for Polly’s return. The 21-year-old film star, who was born here, spoke at Petaluma Junior High, the school both she and the abducted girl attended.

Ryder’s reward capped a week in which dozens of fund-raisers were scheduled, ranging from barbecues and spaghetti feeds to African drum concerts and church socials. Phone-company officials donated telephone lines, and local congresswoman Lynn Woolsey is lobbying the U.S. Postal Service to grant volunteers free mailing privileges. She also showed Polly’s picture on C-SPAN.

For now at least, the official mood in Petaluma is upbeat.

“Come on, for $200,000 even mothers will turn in their children,” says Steve Jette, a chiropractor who is close to Polly’s family. “My feeling is that this guy (the abductor) went from one foster home to another, picking up various patterns of abuse, and then came here. He’ll be found.”

Jette tapes the new poster of the suspect to a news rack near the post office and points to the cheerful photo of Polly next to it.

“She’s a sweetie pie,” he says with emotion. “America will love her.”

But will it find her alive?

At the volunteer center, nobody even raises the issue. Bill Rhodes, a print-store owner who helped organize the initial poster distribution, rules out any doubt. The new police sketch will produce additional leads and help solve the case, he insists.

“Anybody who’s skeptical hasn’t spent any time in the volunteer center,” Rhodes says, gesturing at the storefront where dozens are lined up to donate time on phone lines, mailing projects and other tasks. “The energy has been incredible. . . . We’re actually having to put volunteers on waiting lists, because we can’t use them all at once. It’s a miracle, it’s amazing.”

For others, it’s a nightmare. Robin Terry, an assistant hotel manager and volunteer, says the crime has changed her whole outlook on life in Petaluma.

“This is frightening,” she says, fighting to hold back tears. “I mean, you really want to believe that your children will be safe. I’ve been on my own with two kids for seven years, and you want to think that in a place like this you don’t have to worry about basic safety.

“Last week, my 10-year-old said he was going on a bike ride, and I had to say to him, ‘Remember, this could happen to you.’ For something as simple as that. Can you imagine?”

In Petaluma, nothing may ever be that simple again.