Chapter 7
They began by closing the gate on the railcar and sifting through the cement that had spilled out onto the gasket and tracks beneath the railcar. Most of it was cement powder, Sara having done a fairly thorough job inside the railcar, despite the obstacles she'd faced in that area. Even so, every so often, they picked out a piece of glass, or material from the cement.
Done with the cement they'd spilled, they removed the gasket from the bootjack and began digging into the bag, pulling out more cement powder to sift through. The top of the bag was mostly fine cement, but a few errant items had fallen to the bottom. One was a tooth, perhaps knocked out of the body when it got vibrated around inside the railcar.
The bag empty, Sara began reaching in, pulling out cement from the large hose that ran underground from the bottom of the bag below the rails, coming out of the ground near the bootjack valve and rising up to the top of the cyclone. Reaching as far as she could with her trowel, Sara looked at Grissom. "You know, we're still going to have to figure out the best way to empty the silo and sift through all of the cement in there."
Grissom's eyes moved from her to the silo and then back. She watched his eyes wander over her frame as she pushed her chest out in an effort to stretch her arm down as far as possible. "What do you suggest?"
Lifting her arm out, she dumped the half full trowel into the pile Grissom was methodically sifting through. "I don't know. Dump it all out on the scale and sift through it there?"
"Cement will fly everywhere. Besides, if it begins to rain again…"
Sara nodded. If it began to rain again, the cement would all be exposed, and they'd be trying to sift through a pile of goo and losing possible evidence, not to mention they'd be paving over the scale, creating a mess near impossible to clean up and causing damage to the scale. She stretched down again. "Well we can't load it into a truck. It would be impossible to sift inside, and it gets pumped out into another silo, so we'd just run into the same problem. If we blew it out of the hoses on the truck, we'd still send cement flying everywhere."
Grissom let out a soft, "Hmm," in agreement. She glanced at him and watched as his hands delicately sifted through the relatively small pile of cement he had before him. She reached around with her trowel. "I think that's all we're going to get out of here." When she pulled her trowel out, it only had a smattering of cement on it.
Dumping the cement and placing the trowel down on the ground next to the rails, Sara stood up and rotated her shoulder. Grissom looked up at her. He stood beside her and gave her arm a squeeze. "We can vibrate some more down, but first, let me get rid of this powder. It will give you a chance to rest your arm."
Sara smiled her thanks. She watched Grissom wander away and return with a couple of 4 gallon buckets. "We'll put the powder in here for now and store it somewhere where it won't get wet." He picked Sara's trowel up off the ground and began scooping cement into the buckets, filling one about three-quarters of the way full. Sara was still working the kinks out of her shoulder. Grissom stood across from her and sighed. "You ready?"
She nodded. She knew he'd offer to be the one digging down into the bag if he could, but with the bottom of the gate sticking down from the railcar, and the tight squeeze in between it and the bootjack, there was no way he was small enough or flexible enough to do so. His shoulders were just too wide for the job and he just couldn't bend the way she could. Watching him watch her with a tender expression, she grinned wide and reassuring, "Ready."
They replaced the gasket over the bag and turned the valve for the bootjack, watching the pneumatic bags lift the bag into place. When the gasket was secure against the railcar, Sara opened the valve for the gate opener. Gate open, they looked for the valves for the vibrators and found them, opening them as well.
The vibrators pounded on the side of the railcar. Not wanting to fill the bag up and make it too hard to get out any powder, they closed the valves on the vibrators after a few seconds and closed the gate on the railcar. It would be a slow progression, repeating the process over and over, but it was the only way they knew to control how much cement came out at a given time.
Sara closed the valve on the bootjack and watched as the air bled out of the bags, lowering the bag. She wiggled the gasket off again and began reaching into the bag, scooping out more cement for Grissom to sift through.
After a few scoops, she shifted forward, reaching further down again. She felt a hand clasp her calve and her head shot up, her hard hat banging on the closed gate of the railcar. She twisted around to look at Grissom. "What the…" Her voice trailed off. Grissom's eyes were darting back and forth and he his eyebrows were furrowed. Sara took a deep breath and stilled. "Grissom, it smells like rain." She took another sniff to confirm.
Just then, the skies opened up. Above them, they heard the pounding of drops on the railcar and the lean-to overhead the cyclone. The ground between the railcar and the lean-to quickly saturated.
"Damn," Sara exclaimed, scrambling out from under the railcar, her hard hat falling off as she clambered out. Grissom moved quickly, pulling in all the evidence he'd sifted from the cement under the shelter of the lean-to. He grabbed the bucket of cement powder and pulled it under shelter as well.
Sara grabbed the gasket for the bootjack and maneuvered it back in place. She opened up the valve on the bootjack and watched as the gasket sealed against the railcar. Then, she scrambled up the stairs to the top of the platform and walked down the ladder to the railcar. She'd partially closed the hatches up top before, leaving the open only enough to get air in, but now, with the pouring rain, she sealed the hatches shut, not wanting any moisture to get inside the railcar. So far, everything was contained.
Soaked, she climbed back down to ground level where Grissom was waiting for her. "It doesn't look like it's going to stop any time soon," he shouted over the sound of the compressor and the pounding rain.
Sara nodded vigorously. "I know. At least we have everything contained."
Grissom nodded. "We shouldn't leave the compressor running though, but if we shut it down, air will slowly bleed out of the tank and the pneumatic bags under the bootjack will bleed out as well, lowering the bootjack down. We need to prop it up."
Sara nodded again. They moved quickly, getting soaked as they searched for blocks of wood to prop up the bootjack. After they finished propping up the bootjack, they took some plywood and formed a wall around the bootjack, creating a barrier for any rain that may find its way under the railcar.
Sara stepped back to take a look. Beside her, Grissom took a deep breath. She glanced at him. "What did you do with the evidence?"
"It's inside the office for now. I'll pull the Denali up for us to transfer it later."
Sara nodded. She pulled off a glove and ran her hand over her soaking wet head. "I think this may be a good time to stop for break."
Grissom grinned. "I'll get the compressor if you grab us a snack from the Denali."
