The Case of the Vanishing Inventory

“Ace!” she said, casting a curious glance at my trench coat and fedora. “Why are you dressed as a disheveled Columbo?”

“Mitzy,” I said, “kudos for being brave enough to wear a dress that makes your hips appear so wide.”

And that’s how Mitzy’s murder mystery party began. Mitzy and I started out in the same insurance agency decades ago. Our adversarial relationship started with flicking paperclips at each other before turning into late-night phone calls claiming to be an attractive insurance-enthusiast begging to meet me at, what I came to realize later, the town’s only bar for cross-dressers.

Back at the party, Mitzy turned off the lights and gave everyone candles before reading the background story.

“Where’s the corpse?” I asked.

“Patience, Ace,” Mitzy said, peeking over at Tina, a woman whose devotion to emptying martini glasses got her the nickname Martina. Right on cue, Tina placed her empty drink on the table and passed out on the couch.

“And we have a corpse,” Mitzy rang out, adding, “Don’t let Ace near the body—he’s a necrophiliac.”

“I’m a neck-rub-philiac!” I fired back. “And I told you that in strictest confidence. Now about the mystery, is there anything missing? Let’s take inventory.”

The five conscious party guests scanned the room, looking for anything out of place. Since Mitzy’s house was subject to Mitzy’s questionable taste in home décor, I found almost everything out of place.

After a few minutes, John piped up: “The murder was committed by the antique pistol, since it’s missing and must have been stolen!”

“Not so fast,” Mitzy said. “I learned the hard way from an insurer that missing items aren’t necessary stolen, but I still don’t understand why.”

I leaned in with my candle and said, “Maybe I can shed some light on it.”

“An employee of my insured noticed some inventory missing at the storage warehouse. The insured reported this as a theft and then took inventory—at both the warehouse and the store location—and discovered that four items were missing from the warehouse and 36 from the store location. The insurer says that the employee noticing the missing inventory is sufficient physical evidence to enact the claim at the warehouse. But since the missing products at the store were only discovered by an inventory check, they are declining coverage due to limitation C e. in the Special Causes of Loss form. Do you agree with them?”

“Mitzy,” I said, “I’m not the judge you should be asking.”

Why was Ace being so judgmental?

What information did Ace need? click here.

Jonathan Hermann (hermannism@gmail.com) is an IA contributing editor.