The Cigar Case

Cacophonic yowling of sirens in the dead of the night awoke the owner of a plush condo in Beverly Hills, CA .. Putting on his glasses Jean Pierre rushed to the window towards the source of the bright yellow light. Squinting to brush off his stupor, he realised the light was coming from a fire. The Storage area three blocks away was on fire. A red fire brigade swerved the corner and screeched to a halt. He knew the owner of the storage area of cuban cigars.. he was a good friend..

Pierre rushed down in his dressing gown to the place of the fire. the fire was almost dead by now. the fire fighters were conversing with the night watchman of the adjacent block.

"Do you know who the owner of this.. um.. storage is?",, asked the fireman.

"Excuse me mister, I am Jean Pierre and the owner of this place is a friend of mine, Laurent Lefevre"

"Can you call him up and inform him to come down to the Beverly Hills fire station asap, Mr. Pierre?"

"Oui", said Pierre absently. He was looking aghast at the remains. a few embers here and there. The whole place had burned down. Not a single box of cigars left there.

"What?", said the fireman.

"I mean, yes, of course"

"comment est-ce arrivé?"

A broken down Laurent sat at the breakfast table of Pierre's condo..

"Easily about a million dollars worth of the best quality Cuban cigars! All ash now.. All of it!"

"Come on now, surely you must have insured for them?", said Pierre consoling him.

"Yes! Completely paid up! I'll be damned if you don't pay up.. and quick!", said Monsieur Lefevre to Mr. Hughes of Hughes and Kane Insurance Ltd.

“Now, now, monsieur. I understand you have suffered a huge loss. Your losses will be remunerated as soon as a report is completed. Only a minor step. Once your file is approved by me and Kane you will receive your insurance amounting to four mil!” said Hughes.

“Well make it quick alright!”

She stubbed out her cigarette and picked up the ringing telephone by her bed.

“Listen Sue, a minor case for you,” She recognized her boss’ voice at the other end “a storage area caught fire last night and burned down a million dollars worth of Cuban cigs. You need to look into it as soon as possible”

“Yes, sir”, Susan Moore was a rising star in the firm and aspired to have her own company one day, Hughes, Kane and co was just a stepping stone.. “I will have your file ready as soon as possible”

Another boring file to be closed, she thought. Little did she know that this was a case she would never forget in her entire life.

She got dressed swung by her office, picked up the file and raced to the site. She stepped out of the car and began observing everything. Always keep looking. Through your observation you must be able to spot anomalies, keeping always in mind the relevant facts. It is often things you don’t see that ring bells, she remembered her teacher saying. Robert Connolly was a retired law professor at Princeton, from where she had graduated first class.

Two people were at the site talking. One appeared to be unsettled and the other probably consoling.

“Hello Mr. Lefevre, I am Susan Moore from the Hughes Kane Insurance” she said holding a hand up to the former. He shook it. The look on his face was all too familiar. If faces could speak, Laurent’s would’ve said, I don’t give a damn who you are! Just give me my four million.

“I am just going to make a few enquiries, survey the site and if everything is in order, you will get your money by the end of next week”, IF everything is in order, Sue thought. She had not been on the field for a lot of time, but her reputation was already building. This Susan has a sure instinct,  Hughes had said.

She had an instinct something was wrong. She would soon find out what. She always did. On three occasions previously Susan had saved the firm a total of around a hundred grand. This was her first big case and she already knew why her boss had asked specifically for her to be put on it. He must have smelled a rat. Arsons, though not very common in this area, raised their ugly heads from time to time.

“Mr. Levefre, approximately how many boxes of cigars were in there?”

“Could have been thirty, fourty. I’m not sure”

“Any records with you?”

“All burned down didn’t they?” he said heatedly.

Neat, she thought. Burn down the evidence.

“Look all I know is my insurance has been paid up. And I am entitled to it in such a case.” Said Laurent.

“You are, sir. But not unless there is proof of loss of material as written in the agreement papers. I will just take a look around, alright”

The burned down storage looked like a huge ashtray. It was like Satan had a sudden whim to smoke Cubans. Sue looked around, eyes peeled for signs of staging. The file said old wiring was the most probable cause of fire. Pretty old, the wiring sure is, she thought. Moving around to the back of the room she located the source of fire. Wires from the wall had stuck out, the insulation burned down by the fire leaving them exposed live. Copper wires hung from the walls, red.

Red. Wait a minute. There is something amiss. She moved around to spot more evidence. Spotting something red in a nearby puddle, she swept off the wet ash to find a Copper plaque bearing the name of Mr. Laurent’s company. The words stenciled on the plaque did not bother Sue as much as its appearance. It was shining red.

Laurent Cigar Dealers, est. 1990.

Twelve years. Still shining bright red. Something she remembered her geeky lab mate had said in Senior High about copper turning green under certain conditions. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember what. Should give Mabel a call, she thought, Nitrogen, was it?

Mabel happened to have her lunch break at twelve and she was delighted to meet her old friend Susan from the Chemistry lab. After exchanging pleasantries and reminiscing the good old days, Sue came straight to the point.

“Well, not nitrogen as it was, but Copper does react with nitric acid to form a green layer. Actually it gives nitrous and nitric oxides depending on the concentration of the acid,” Mabel said, she was a Chemistry major, “but it does stick to form a layer on copper.”

“I dunno about nitric acid, but how about a helluva lot of smoke?”

“What smoke?”

“Smoke, as in the grey dusty matter, duh…”

“what I meant was, smoke from what?”

“Oh cigars”

“that would indeed turn copper grey, combustion of nicotine and some organics in cigarettes are known to react on copper surface leaving a green coating on the metal…”

She had stopped listening to Mabel who had gone on rambling about the reaction like she did in the Lab. So that was it! That was her answer. She was set to save her company millions of dollars. Oh no, it wasn’t about the commission, it was about the rep. yes, she was in for a wave of awe when, dramatically, she’d reveal the flaw in front of the court! Clever plan Mr Lefevre. Perfect, almost.

“So you say copper turns green when nicotine burns in presence of copper?”

Mabel was Susan’s expert witness.

“A layer is formed, yes, comprising of…”

“Never mind that. So if some forty crates of Cigars were to catch fire in a room about this size, would it be safe to assume that the plaque should also have turned green?”

“Definitely. This problem was first identified with copper cigarette holders… ”

“That’s all” said Susan with a meaningful look at the jury and returned to her seat looking smug.

Lefevre’s lawyer, Ronald Weiss, got up to cross examine.

“So this plaque recovered from the Storage.  What grade would you say it is? Just hazard a guess, I’m not asking you to be too specific”

“It looks like a high quality piece to me, judging from the shade of red” said Mabel.

“So you say that the plaque should have been green instead of the shining red that it is right now?”

“Yes, it should have. The given the number of boxes and the volume of the room, the concentration was quite high”

Weiss, himself had done quite some research. He loved to read day to day Chemistry, before, you know, he became a lawyer.

“You were referring to these copper cigarette holders. I happened to look around a bit myself and chanced upon this” he said, taking out a copper holder neatly cut in half, along its length. “would this be what you were referring to?”

“yes” said Mabel, a little anxious.

“Now what would you say about this layer? Is it, umm.. flaky as rust upon Iron, or impermeable, as oxide of titanium on titanium?”

Mabel glanced towards Susan, who was about to raise an objection as to relevance of the cross-examination.

“I guess it is a permeable layer” she said in a low voice.

“Your guess is correct, miss! I happened to do a bit of research on it, and turns out that this layer is as you say a permeable one. To the lay man – flaky. In fact, traces of components of the residue were found in people’s lungs. Now if this copper plaque, covered by such a layer, were to be exposed to a jet of water issuing at speeds of 500 liters a minute, would you safely expect it to get washed, miss Mabel?”

“Yes”

“That, indeed, explains the present color of the copper plaque, doesn’t it?”

Weiss said with a smirk.

“Too many insurance agencies all too frequently try to avoid paying up by proving arson these days”