Then we quit talking, almost, and in the light of his spotlight from his car, watched what was going on. “What in the world?” I thought when I saw the policeman take what looked like a fishing-tackle box out of his car, carry it to the gate and set it down. Then he went back to the car and brought out something else. “What’s that?” Poetry wanted to know, and the friendly cop said, “A flash-bulb camera with a reversible tripod. We’re going to snap a picture of these tire tracks.”
“Why?” I thought, but didn’t want to seem dumb enough to say so, ’cause I supposed Poetry knew.
First, the cop laid a black cardboard down alongside of the tire track, the edge of the cardboard looking like a ruler with little white inch marks on it. Then he set up his camera with its lens focused right straight down on the track. As quick as a wink, there was a blinding flash of light which showed me that it was a flashlight picture they were taking.
Right away, he opened the fishing-tackle-box-looking kit and took out what looked like a Flit can, like the kind Mom uses on flies and also on bugs and stuff in our garden, and began to spray something very carefully all over the track for about two feet of it, holding the spray gun about three feet high.
“It’s shellac,” the policeman said, and I said, “Why?” and he said, “Wait and see,” which I had to do.
Pretty soon, he stopped spraying, screwed off the container at the bottom of the spraying device and screwed on another can of something else and started in doing the same thing, pumping away very carefully, not letting the spray strike very hard on the sandy tracks, so as not to make any of the sand move.
I looked at the other things in the kit which was spread wide open in front of us, and saw what looked like a large salt shaker like the one Mom uses when she is cooking raw fried potatoes, also there was a cup made out of rubber, two other containers, a spoon and what is called a spatula, which looked like a long flat stick our doctor uses when he looks into my throat and makes me say “Ah,” and also looks at my tongue and the place where my tonsils used to be.
“The dry shellac makes the tire impression firm enough to stand the weight of the plaster of Paris without crumbling it,” the policeman said, and even though I didn’t understand what it was all about or why, it was very interesting to watch. Right away he started getting the plaster of Paris ready.
It was certainly an interesting sight. They mixed some of the plaster of Paris in the rubber cup, doing it almost exactly like I had seen our Sugar Creek dentist do it, and also like we do it in school when we make an art plaque or something. The only difference was, they sprinkled in a little salt to make it harden quicker. The plaster of Paris was poured on the top of the water, and allowed to sink to the bottom of the rubber cup until the water couldn’t take any more, then it was stirred with a spoon, and very carefully dipped out with the spoon into the tire impressions. First, though, they made a little cardboard wall along the side of the track so the plaster of Paris wouldn’t run over the edges.
“What’s he doing now?” I said to Poetry, when some sticks and twigs and little pieces of string were laid on top of the first layer of plaster of Paris.