The Devil's Opera(125)
“Your turn is coming, boys. He’s not the only one who’s going to lose his breakfast today.”
“What he said,” Nichols said with a chuckle of his own, but he sobered quickly. “This is going to be ugly. Have any of you ever seen bad burns?”
“Yep. Worked a tanker truck fire as a policeman back before the Ring of Fire.” Byron spat, as if to clear his mouth of a bad taste.
“I have treated several men who work around forges and foundries,” Schlegel added.
“Okay, then, you know something of what to expect. It won’t be crispy critters, but it will be pretty bad, just the same.”
Milich had staggered on after expelling everything in his stomach. Now he was standing beside the remains of the boiler wagon, waving his hand in the air.
“Right,” Byron said, beckoning Milich to return and turning to the waiting police photographer. “You’re next.”
They watched as the photographer and his assistant began taking pictures of the whole scene. After they had cleared the central area, Byron turned to the doctors and said, “Let’s you and me and Sergeant Hoch go look the scene over before we let anyone else in.” Gotthilf trailed in their wake as they stepped through the cordon of patrolmen.
It didn’t take long for them to make their way through the scene. Nichols didn’t spend long at any group of corpses, but Gotthilf watched as his eyes darted everywhere, missing nothing.
The final body, though—the one closest to the ruin of the wagon—apparently presented some sort of quandary to the doctor. He spent several minutes looking at the man, even going so far as to crouch beside the body and feel his arms and legs.
Finally he straightened, and looked to the patiently waiting examiner and detectives.
“Okay, here’s my read of it all. If my count’s correct, you’ve got forty-two dead guys here.”
Gotthilf nodded. That matched his count. He pulled out his notepad, and started making notes.
“I know that a lot of them appear to have sustained injuries from the explosion, some of them pretty severe, but the cause of death for thirty-nine of the men is going to be exposure to the super-heated steam. Massive second-degree burns of the face, hands, and any other exposed skin, but the true killer is that they inhaled that steam, scalded their lungs, and ended up suffocating to death because of the blisters that formed internally. No questions, no mysteries there. And you can tell your men that death was certain after their first inhalation of the steam. Nothing anyone could have done about that, outside of a direct miracle from God.”
Nichols nodded to Schlegel. “You might examine one of them, so you’ll see what the damage looks like. In fact, take some pictures and write up an article on it. We’ll get it published somehow. Steam power is going to be around for quite a while, and doctors and nurses need to know what accidents with steam can produce.”
He waved a hand around. “Whether their other injuries would have been fatal is a moot point. That’s a very painful way to die, I might add, although it wouldn’t have lasted long, thank God.”
Gotthilf found himself thanking God, indeed, that the torment of the workers had been brief.
Dr. Nichols continued with, “But that leaves three guys who aren’t blistered, so that means they were dead before the steam got to them.” He looked to Schlegel again. “You need to examine all three of them,” he pointed back the way they came, “but I think the guy outside the gate just caught a golden BB of debris or something from the explosion. It looks just like he was shot in the head, but I’d bet you’ll find a bolt or something lodged somewhere in the brain.”
Next he pointed off to a group a little to one side of the site. “And the guy whose head was almost torn off, that’s pretty self-explanatory.”
Now he pointed down to the corpse at his feet. “But this guy, this guy I don’t get. He’s the closest one to where the boiler was, so he should have caught the brunt of the steam when the boiler blew. His jacket is wet, like the steam soaked into it, but there’s not a blister on him, so that’s not kosher. And he’s got at least one broken arm, maybe a leg as well.”
Gotthilf jotted all that down. Nichols’ eyes were intent and he was now frowning. “Dr. Schlegel will need to go over this body with care,” he said. “This guy was already dead when the steam hit him, and that’s weird.”
When he saw Gotthilf was frowning at his statement, the doctor elaborated. “Dead meat—and that’s all this guy is now—doesn’t blister. That’s because when the heart stops pumping, blisters stop forming.”