Daily News from New York, New York • 7

By LARRY CELONA and RUTH LAN DA Daily News Staff Writers In a bittersweet ceremony, the daughter of slain Police Officer Robert Machate was baptized yesterday in the Brooklyn church where her tar in the arms of her father's sister, Vivian, her godmother. Her father's brother, Thomas, her godfather, stood beside them. Her mother and other family members also iatner was christened and confirmed, married and eulo- gathered at the altar gized. Nicole Marie cried only a Nicole Marie Machate was little, when the holy water born June 6, three months af- was poured on her head, ter her father was shot with Then the priest lit the candle his own gun as he struggled representing life and handed with a drug suspect. it to Thomas Machate.

Yesterday, with tears in After the christening, their eyes, Machate's widow, Grace Ann Machate said that Grace Ann. his Darents. sis standing beside her child at the altar, she had thought of 'Hie end of one life and the beginning of another." "I thought that this was where I got married," the 26-year-old widow said. "And then I thought of the funeral, and the casket going down the aisle. "I'm happy for her, but sad for my husband," she said.

"I wish he was here." Later, Mayor Koch and relatives of other slain cops attended the christening party. "Life goes on, but we have to make the best of it," said ter, brother, and in-laws gathered to celebrate a new life at St Mark's Church in Sheeps-head Bay. The priest, the Rev. Charles Mangini, had married Robert and Grace Ann. He had celebrated Robert's funeral Mass.

"Nicole Marie," said the priest, "represents the life and legacy of her father, Robert Machate, who gave his life in a sacrifice for all of us. The baby wearing a white flared dress, a gold cross around her neck and a COPS CHECK damaged pay phone at Rutland and Austin Williams. 36. in bodeea doorway." Road and Rockaway Parkway, Brownsville, They were treated at Brookdale Hospital. Cops Brooklyn, yesterday.

It got in way when persons found numerous 9-mm. shell casings but said unknown fired shots that hit Reese Hoplen, 37, they had no motive for the shootings. AMHOWV PESCATME DAILY NEWS little white flower on her Koch, who gave the baby "a wrist was borne to the al-- christening cup" and a kiss, Ey DAVID J. KRAJiCEK about 35, the other a light-skinned black or Hispanic with bushy orange hair. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Washington forwarded more than 100 leads to New York police after Andre's case was featured in a direct-mail ad sent to 50 million U.S.

homes. The center's toll-free number for tips is (800) 843-5678. A steady flow of tips has come from a New Jersey flight attendant who professes to have psychic powers. She phoned police after seeing Andre's photograph in the Daily News. The attendant said she had held the boy while working on a New York-Dallas flight when a disheveled black woman asked that she watch the infant while she used the rest room.

"She (the flight attendant) told us she was a psychic and that she'd had a vision that the woman and boy had continued on to Des Moines, Iowa," said the detective. "She saw an off-white colored church with a steeple topped with a brown cross, and she saw some type of ceremony. She also gave us the word Police in Des Moines tracked down churches matching the description including one on Day St but a check of baptismal records was fruitless. Daily News Police Bureau Chief Despite the efforts of an amateur psychic, a prominent missing-children advocacy group and scores of cops from New York to Iowa, hope is fading that little Andre Bryant ever will be returned to his family. The disappearance of the Brooklyn infant four months ago is among the most ghastly baby-snatching cases in the city's history.

Andre and his mother, Monique Rivera, 22, left their Bushwick home March 29 for a shopping trip with two women who had befriended Rivera that week. Rivera's body was found the next morning in Eastchester Bay in the Bronx. Her son, then 6 weeks old, has not been seen since. Investigators believe the two women cultivated Rivera to get the boy, perhaps to use as a "prop" in a credit-card scam. Authorities say women with infants are less likely to be scrutinized by salesclerks when using stolen credit cards.

"Our best guess is that they tried to recruit Rivera for the scheme, and when she refused, they killed her to get the baby," said a detective assigned to the case. Cops have chased dozens of leads to no avail, and now the Police De BABY ANDRE BRYANT, missing for four months, and his mom, Monique Rivera, whose body was found in Eastchester Bay in the Bronx. partment has begun dismantling the task force assigned to the search. Rivera lived on Madison St, Bushwick, with Timothy Bryant, 24, and their three children. On March 28, she and the children were approached by two women who treated them to lunch at McDonald's, then took them shopping with stolen credit cards at the Green Acres shopping mall in Valley Stream, L.I.

That night, as Rivera showed off a new outfit, she told Bryant that she had met two friends from high school who bought the clothes. The next day, the women returned and drove off with Rivera and Andre in a new burgundy Pontiac Grand Am for a shopping excursion to the Galleria mall, White Plains. Rivera's body turned up the following morning. Police have had no luck finding the car or the women one described as a dark-skinned black.