Ashes on the Avenue
Cases unlock in order, like levels. This is case 12 of 100.
Cidade do Samba, Rio de Janeiro, 3:10 am on Carnival Saturday. The opening float of Estrela da Gamboa, a twelve-meter golden phoenix, caught fire inside the workshop.
The firefighters put it out at 3:40 am. No one was hurt, but the phoenix is charcoal. The parade is tonight.
The night watchman swears no one came through the main entrance after 1 am. Three people from the samba school were near the float in the last few hours. One of them started the fire.
The board room on the workshop mezzanine, trophies on the wall, the smell of smoke drifting in through the window.
Suspects
Anselmo BragaThe school's carnival designer, 52
Iracema dos SantosHead seamstress of the costume workshop, 61
Jurandir MoreiraDrum section director, 45
The real case
The Cidade do Samba fire
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, February 2011
This case is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places and events in the game do not portray real people. The account below is a factual summary, based on public sources, of the case that served as inspiration.
In the early hours of 7 February 2011, less than a month before Carnival, a fire destroyed three workshops at the Cidade do Samba in Rio de Janeiro, belonging to the Grande Rio, Portela and União da Ilha samba schools. Floats, costumes and a year of work were lost within a few hours.
The three schools paraded anyway, outside the competition, with material rebuilt in a rush and donations from their rivals. Forensic experts pointed to an electrical fault as the most likely cause. No one was convicted of a crime.
The game borrows the setting: samba school workshops destroyed days before the parade. The embezzlement plot and the arsonist are fiction.
Sources
Case glossary
Words from this case you might not know.
- Cidade do Samba
- A complex of large workshops in Rio de Janeiro where the top samba schools build their Carnival floats.
- samba school
- A Brazilian community association that prepares a themed parade of music, dance, costumes and floats for Carnival.
- carnival designer
- The artistic director of a samba school, who creates the parade's theme, floats and costumes.