“It’s four now. You think he’ll be able to wrap this up in a couple of hours?”

“Don’t know how hard he’ll be to crack. Let’s hope that the Loo is at the top of his game.”

TINSLEY’S COMPLEXION WAS almost as green as the first time Decker had seen him. Maybe he should have brought in a barf bag. “Thanks for coming in.” He placed a cup of coffee in front of the foreman, along with some whitening powder and a couple of sugars. “Thought you could use something to do with your hands.”

Tinsley picked up the coffee. “I look that nervous?”

“More like you have better things to do with your time.”

“That’s true.” Tinsley took a sip of coffee, made a face, and then added the whitener and the sugar. “I don’t know what I could tell you now that I didn’t tell you the first time. Tell you the truth, I don’t wanna remember.” He lowered his head. “It was horrible. How do you do that, day in and day out?”

“I like getting bad guys off the streets.” Decker took the chair next to him. “You’re a little calmer than the first time we met. Maybe some details might come back.”

“What kind of details?”

“I don’t know.” The Loo took out his notebook. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”

“Like when I got to work or when I first saw her?”

Tinsley had given Decker an opening. “Well, let’s start with when you first saw her.” A noncommittal smile. “When was the first time you saw Adrianna Blanc?”

Tinsley cleared his throat. “I came to the site around one forty-five. I noticed the body around five minutes later.”

“Tell me exactly what happened?”

The recitation came by rote. He got to the Grossman project around one forty-five. He wanted to clean up before the inspector came later in the afternoon. He started picking up trash, noticed a spot with a lot of flies, saw the body, dropped the garbage bag, and heaved. Lastly, he called 911. His story—from start to finish—lasted five minutes.

Good and fine except Yvette Jackson had ID’d Tinsley from a six-pack as the man Adrianna was talking to at Garage. It was now almost four o’clock. Decker didn’t know how long they would dance around the truth, but he knew that Tinsley would crash sooner than later. The Loo stared at his prey for a few seconds, trying to unnerve him.

“Mr. Tinsley, I didn’t ask you for the first time that you saw Adrianna’s corpse. I asked you when was the first time that you saw Adrianna Blanc.”

Again, Tinsley cleared his throat. “I don’t understand. I saw her hanging up there about five minutes after I came onto the property.”