The Matter of the Duct Tape Tuxedo

by Steve Levi

  “Well, Mr. Theobald.”

  “Bold. Bold like a knight shinging armor.”

  “Yes, Mr. Theobold,” Noonan accented the “a” in the name. “You said an igloo. I assume you mean a cargo igloo and not an ice igloo.”

  “Got it, boy. Ain’ no reason to have an ice igloo in these parts, if you know what ah mean. Yup, a plastic igloo. Square on the bottom and rounded on top, just like an Eskimo igloo.”

  “You have an igloo that’s gaining weight?”

  “Yes siree bob cat. I put it on the plane in Memphis at 125 pounds and it comes off the cargo plane in Sandersonville at 225. Picked up a 100 pounds along the way.”

  “You mean someone opened it up and put in an extra hundred pounds of something?”

  “Got a seal on it. That is, it’s enclosed with a fed lock. Airline folks put it on in Memphis and it’s just as good as the moment it was latched. Ain’ been opened. But it’s 100 pounds heavier and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna pay for some airline’s jockey putting some stuff in and sticking me with the bill.”

  “This is the third time this has happened in the last month,” Colonel Sanders of the Air National Guard told Noonan when he arrived at the Sandersonville cargo terminal. “No relation,” Sanders said as it was clear Noonan was about to ask of his lineage. “He’s from Kentucky; we’re out of Dee-troit.” He extended the “D” of “Detroit” as if it were a cattle call.

  “Let me make sure I understand what the problem is,” Noonan asked. “You have igloos that are getting loaded onto planes and they are picking up weight along the way. They start at, say, 100 pounds, and are unloaded at 150 pounds.”

  “That’s a simple way of saying it. It’s more complicated than that. Cargo is not like passengers. Passengers get onboard in Sandersonville and make Denver in one hop. That’s because passengers breathe and buy liquor. The airlines want them moving as fast as possible. Cargo is different. It goes when it most efficient and profitable.”

  “In other words, cargo may or may not go on the next available flight.”

  “Cargo rarely goes on passenger flights. Except for mail, organs and real expensive stuff like Certificates of Deposit, $5,000 a bottle Scotch and furs. It usually goes by cargo plane. A plane could arrive in 10 minutes or not until the next day. The cargo could go through Atlanta on its way to Denver or through New York or New Jersey. It goes when it goes. No one complains. There’s an old Alaskan cargo expression, ‘cargo don’t talk back.’”

  “All right. So it goes when it goes. I’m assuming you weigh it when it comes in.”

  “That is correct. We need to know how heavy it is. That’s because we have to charge the sender by the pound and we need to pack the plane so it is balanced. We cannot assume two packages of the same size have the same weight.”

  “If you weighed the igloos when they went onboard, why did you weight them when they came off the plane?”

  “Security. Double-checking our system. It’s not done on a regular basis. Randomly. We need to make sure our equipment is working and our staff on the ball.”

  “So how many igloos were overweight?”

  “Three we’ve caught.”

  “Over the last, what, three months? Six months?”

  “Weeks. Three weeks. Nothing was out of the ordinary until three weeks ago. Suddenly we’ve got three overweight. A bit over the weight variance. 8%, our standard.”

  “You think someone is trying to chisel on the weight?”

  “Could be. Double the weight is double the price. If someone can send 150 pounds of igloo for 75 pounds there’s a savings in their pocket. Multiply by ten packages and half your shipment is flying free.”

  “I must be missing something, Colonel.”

  “Sanders. Not the Kentucky Sanders, the Deee-troit Sanders.”

  “Yes sir. I am assuming when someone ships an igloo it is weighed when it comes in the cargo by door.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “So the shipper is paying the correct amount.”

  “Yes, at that moment.”

  “But once the shipper leaves and the igloo gains weight, isn’t that the problem of the air carrier, not the shipper?”

  “We don’t believe so. If the igloo is weighed when it comes off the plane and it weighs more, the assumption is that the initial weight was in error. The shipper is then billed for the exit weight – we call it the exit weight – not the entrance weight.”

  “But how the can igloo gain weight in your care?”

  “We don’t know. We just know that it does and we charge accordingly.”

  “I’ve got a cousin who can help you solve this,” said Harriet, Noonan’s Administrative Assistant in the Detective Office, as she lathered peanut butter on her bagel.

  “Are you really going to eat that?” Noonan said when she topped the peanut butter with blackberry jelly.

  “Yeah. What’s it to you?” She took a bite. “My cousin Samantha has a scale that lies.”

  “What do you mean, lies?”

  “Lies, you know. Lies. Doesn’t reveal the truth. She’s got a scale that says she’s 120 even when she’s not.”

  “You mean she weighs 140 and the scale still says she weighs 120.”

  “Try 160. It’s from some kind of a self-esteem store. She wants to be 120. The scale says she’s 120. She feel good about herself.”

  “But she weighs 160,” snapped Noonan.

  “In her mind,” retorted Harriet, “she’s 120. It makes her feel good. She’s a better person. Has better Karma.”

  “That’s garbage,” snapped the detective.

  “Maybe,” said Harried. “But she feels good to be herself at 120 pounds.” Harriet nibbled at her bagel. “How do you know the scale at the Sandersonville Airport is correct?”

  “We did some test weights. It’s accurate within a degree of error.”

  “Did the igloos that were overweight all come from the same airport?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did the same cargo crews handle the outgoing igloos?”

  “Nope.”

  “What did the owners of the igloo say when they found out their igloos were going to be charged more because of the weight?”

  “They don’t know. Probably still don’t. These are large shippers. A certain amount of adjustment is expected. The number of overweight igloos are so small they do not warrant an investigation. When a company is shipping 60,000 pounds a month, a few hundred pounds over on some igloos is not worth their time to investigate.”

  “So someone’s getting away with poundage theft.”

  “A better question is why?”

  “Why don’t you ask the Sandersonville Chief of Detectives? He’s a crackerjack at solving those kind of inane questions.”

  Planes, as Noonan knew, routinely violate the laws of common sense. This is to say, what is reality to pilots takes some explaining to non-aviators. For instance, every pilot knows a plane becomes lighter the farther it flies. To non-aviators this is a non sequitur. How can a plane lose weight by flying? A plane is, after all, a plane and it is the same plane on the ground as it is in the air. This is only half-true. A plane on the ground is heavier than a plane in the air because a plane on the ground is loaded with fuel. As the plane flies, fuel is burned and the plane becomes lighter. This is an important bit of knowledge for seasoned pilots – particularly bush pilots in Alaska – because it means they can take off cautiously overloaded and when they reach a mountain range hours later the plane will weigh less so it can easily leap over the mountain tops.

  But this bit of trivia did Noonan no good because it was weight being lost, not being gained. Logically, if an igloo weighed 100 pounds when checked in and 150 pounds when checked out, it must have gained 50 pounds somewhere along the way. This, of course, assumes the scales at both ends of the journey were accurate. In this he was sure because both scales were frequently checked by the United States Department of Weights and Measures. Even if the inspectors were a bit off, 50
pounds off was a bit much.

  Since the igloos were sealed – a pun which Noonan appreciated since his wife was an Alaskan – something could not have been inserted. If it had been, the shipper would have reported it. Tossing an extra 50 pounds on top of the igloo was not reasonable because the extra 50-pound object would have been spotted by the person picking up the package. Igloos were a standard size and weight so putting something under the igloo when it was weighed was not a possibity either. Again, if there had been 50 pounds of something under the igloo it would have been spotted by the person picking up the igloo.

  So how had the igloo gained weight?

  On a hunch Noonan went back to the Sandersonville Airport. Colonel Sanders was still there – not of Kentucky but Deee-troit as he reminded Noonan again.

  “Colonel,” Noonan asked. “Are other airports having this problem?”

  “Igloos with too much weight? Yes, if you mean a variance of up to 8%. Above that, rarely. We’re regulated by every one of the alphabet soup agencies, state and federal. See, technically, we are an oddity. We are within a state but are not state property but cargo leaves here into the state so we are regulated by the state. We handle cargo from overseas so the feds are involved but only as far as the front door. Then the cargo falls under state regulation.”

  “And you have to open your books to both the state and feds.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Is this the only cargo facility with an overweight problem?”

  “I haven’t heard any other airport cargo facility has this problem.” He quickly added, “Not that it is a problem, you understand. It’s probably a paperwork error. And the weight is too small for us to worry about it. We handle tons of cargo so a few hundred pounds of error is not even peanuts.”

  “How can a 50% increase in weight be a paperwork error?”

  “What else can it be? The scales are regularly checked at both ends of the journey. The igloos are sealed so nothing can go into it. There are lots of sizes of igloos but all of the sizes are the same weight. If there was something extra on top of the igloo or underneath the consignment drivers would report it. No, it has to be a paperwork error.”

  Noonan didn’t say anything for a moment. “Do you mind if I look around?”

  “You want to see the scales?”

  “Sure. And take a look-see.”

  “Be my guest.”

  Noonan spent the next hour walking through the cargo warehouse. Though Sandersonville was not a large city there was an amazing amount of cargo. Much of it was pass-through. Noonan discovered that by reading the cargo labels. Igloos, crates and packages were coming from into the warehouse from all over the United States and then being shipped out to other cities on the North Carolina coastline. There was shelving for the smaller packages and crates while there were igloos on pallets on the main floor.

  “What happens when you get more igloos then you have square footage in the warehouse?”

  “It doesn’t happen that often,” a forklift operator told Noonan. “When it does we have extra space in a hangar near the runway.”

  “When igloos comes out of the warehouse, are they still weighed here in this warehouse?”

  “Everything coming in or going out is weighed in this warehouse. The hangar is just a holding facility. The shippers still have to come here to check their cargo in or get it out.”

  “Any unusual cargo in or out over the past couple of months?”

  “Nothing coming into Sandersonville is usual by your definition. We had an elephant once, for instance.”

  “An elephant?”

  “Right. It came under its own power, if you know what I mean. Then it went out by air cargo on a trip to schools along the coast. To show kids there really were elephants. But it came in as cargo and went out as cargo. At least that was how it was charged.”

  “Any new clients in the past few months?”

  “Same old same old. A few new ones. This is construction season so we’re getting a lot of building material. A lot of tourism cargo is coming in, pretty much the same mix as last year at this time.

  “Cargo ever get lost?”

  “Lost? Sure. But not lost and never found. Small things get shuffled around a lot in here to make room for larger items. We get all sizes of things in here: flat, round, heavy, light, and bulky. We get steel rods that are long and, well, round. Then there are cases of meat that are in refrigerated containers and exotic ice creams that are in freezers. We get everything here.”

  “Did you find anything?” asked Colonel Sanders when Noonan came back to the front of the warehouse.

  “Not really. Just a few more questions. The cargo that was overweight. Was all of the overweight cargo to the same shipper?”

  “Not the ones we caught. Three different shippers.”

  “Were all of the overweight items igloos?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were the overweight igloos all picked up by the same truck drivers?”

  “That I could not tell you. We’re only concerned with the cargo inside our doors. As long as the truck drivers have the proper paperwork they can have the cargo.”

  When Noonan got back to the office he pulled Lt. Weasel into a conference. “You have clothes other than your uniform?”

  “Some jeans and T-shirts.”

  “How about a work shirt?”

  “Never needed one.”

  “You do now.”

  Harriet spent the next morning whining about how three of the detectives had not made it into the office yet and here it was almost 11 a.m. Noonan kind of grunted and went back to his Jumble. By noon Harriet was beside herself.

  “Did you give Weasel and the others the day off?”

  “Who me?”

  “Yes, you! If they get a day off, so do I!”

  “As far as I know they’re working.”

  “Is this another of those undercover jobs?”

  “I’m not sure,” Noonan said as Weasel and the three detectives came in. Weasel was smiling a cop smile: just a hint of one end of his lips twitching up.

  “You were right, chief.” Weasel said. “I can’t tell you what they were smuggling but they were caught at it. It was a good idea to get the feds involved. We could only go as far as the check-in counter. The feds could go all the way in.”

  “What did they find?” Noonan asked.

  “Beats the bejeezus out of me. You know the feds. They don’t tell anyone anything.”

  Harriet was splitting a blouse seam. “OK, what’s been going on here?”

  Weasel cut in before Noonan could speak. “Remember the overweight igloo problem?”

  “OK,” snapped Harriet. “What does it have to do with you and the rest of the staff getting the morning off and leaving me here with work to do?”

  “We weren’t taking the morning off. We were staking out the cargo warehouse. See, the extra weight wasn’t in the igloos, on the igloos or under the igloos.”

  “Well, if the igloos was overweight. Where else could it be?”

  “That’s the brilliance of the scheme,” said Weasel with too much excitement for a police officer. “The cargo workmen were smuggling stuff out of the warehouse. How it got in we do not know. What it was we do not know. But we do know how it was being smuggled out. It was in the pallets, the wooden frames under the igloo.”

  “What?”

  “See, let’s say the warehouseman wanted to smuggle 100 pounds of something out the warehouse. They had to account for the weight so what they did was put the smuggled items inside the frame of the pallet and then put an igloo on top. Then they loaded the pallet and frame onto the scale. The weight was recorded and then the igloo and the pallet with the smuggled goods was loaded onto a truck. The truck drives away and that’s that. The shipper has so many tons of cargo coming in a few hundred extra pounds won’t make any difference. A weight discrepancy will only be discovered in an audit of the cargo warehouse and by then the pallet is long gone.”

  �
�So the shipper has been getting the smuggled goods? That should be easy to prove.”

  “No,” said Weasel. “The captain figured the shipper was not getting the smuggled goods. The truck drivers were. They were delivering the igloos and pulling the goods out from inside the pallets. The shippers never knew they were being used. Slipping the smuggled goods inside the pallets took seconds. The igloos covered up the goods in the pallet on the weighing machine and by the time the loaded pallets got to the shipper, the goods were gone.”

  “Pretty slick,” said Harriet. She turned to Noonan. “Pretty clever on your part.”

  “No, on your Cousin Samantha’s part. I liked your story. No matter how much she weighed the scales read the same. The weight varied but the scales did not. But what if it were reversed, the scales varied but the weight did not? At the scales the weight of igloos varied but its contents did not. The extra weight was not in the igloo; it was under the igloo.”

  “Those guys might have been smuggling for years. But they made a mistake with one pallet. That tripped them up.”

  “It’s the little things that trip you up,” Noonan said.

  “Well, if that’s the case, how about a little thing like half-day off for me to do some undercover work down at the beach?”