The Bureau Investigation

On a Tuesday in August, Maximilian Sessions Branagh III became very excited when a young couple entered his furniture shop. This shop was situated on the dusty side of Langman, Georgia, a town which had never quite gotten over Sherman. No one ever ventured into it, unless they were on their way to someplace else—not even Sherman. This was true of the couple, who were on their way back from a week’s worth of vacationing in Florida. They ventured into Branagh & Hines on a whim, with a young child in their arms, age three. They looked wealthy enough to find overpriced antiques and secondhand appliances charming, so Maximilian decided to like them.

            This resulted in his leaving his seat behind the countertop—a remnant of his father’s renovation in the 1970s, before the man was struck on the head by an errant goat and died in the county hospital two days after—and guiding the husband and his rather timid wife around to look at mattresses and chrome toasters.

            Their son was absently set down and sometime between the microwave and the coffee Table part of the tour, he crawled beneath the massive sofa, which was suspended three feet in the air by wires hung from the ceiling as a sort of display in the front window. The sofa had hung there for nearly two decades and should have remained there for many more. But before any of them could tell what had happened, they heard the sound of four hundred pounds slamming against linoleum.

            With the instinct of a mother, the woman started and said, “Charlie! Where’s Charlie?” The two men realized what she meant, and they all looked at where the sofa had fallen. After her husband heaved it on its side, Charlie’s mother screamed because her son had been caught by the corner of the sofa when it fell, though whatever providence exists in rural Georgia shops had spared his small head. But the boy was not conscious, badly bruised, with his elbow cocked away from his body irregularly, as if the bone had been snapped. The ambulance couldn’t be called fast enough.

            Long after mother, father, and son had been whisked away by a set of overexcited paramedics, Maximilian sat at his counter, head in his tired old hands. His life had become a haze of mealtimes and summer afternoons tinted orange from the dust that hot winds pushed intown from the soybean fields. And then—just like that—a snap, a threat, and a customer’s son with his whole life ahead of him had been sent away from his shop—Maximilian’s father’s harmless, yawning old shop—seriously injured.

            Maximilian felt betrayed. He looked up, and the shadows around the furniture no longer blurred in sleepy content. Something had died, but not the boy. The shop itself felt different. What had been left of Maximilian’s father, Earl Branagh II vanished, in its place the scent of something old left to wither. Maximilian blinked. His seat had grown cold. His old shop was all edges and angles, and the counter’s pattern no longer soothed him.

            He pushed back from the island, the metal legs of his stool grating against the floor. Time to go. He absently flicked off the light switches in the inventory room and main display. The guilty sofa lay where it had been pushed, away from the boy. That poor boy.

            After turning the sign in the door to “closed,” Maximilian tiredly locked up. The street was deserted and dusty. Evening was coming on fast, and Maximilian thought happily of his home, which was uncontaminated by the shadows he’d just fled.

He climbed into the only car on the block, his car, a surprisingly nice car—v8 engines were the only thing he’d ever had much passion for, which perhaps explained his wife’s decision to divorce him twenty years prior—and drove away. He did not look back.

The asphalt grew cooler as evening was succeeded by twilight, then the blackness that pervades country streets south of the Carolinas at nightfall. It was in this blackness that a careful observer may have noticed a shifting or a sighing in the shop, perhaps the soft whimper of an old ceiling fan propelled in a semicircle by a nonexistent wind. But mostly it was quiet and the furniture still.

It wasn’t until the clock hung on the east wall, an ancient old thing with roman numerals engraved around the face, wheezed to life and struck the time—nine, ten, eleven, twelve, then thirteen o’ clock, all ponderously, heavily—that the sound of an approaching car could be distinguished.

The noise grew louder, and louder, and then still louder, and had someone been standing just within the shop, they could have seen the fire hydrant outside vibrate as something very heavy drew closer. A massive armed vehicle pulled up outside, as black as the surrounding night. In a profound silence, a stair set appeared along the side of the tank, a portal in its side opened, and something that looked large and flat, like a desk, waddled out onto the pavement, followed by two more creatures of the same size and shape. A closer look revealed silk ties pasted onto their fronts and smart, crisp caps perched atop what was perhaps their head. Their motion smoothed, the ungainly trot becoming the stride of someone with authority.

They entered the stop, though no key was produced and no knob was turned. For a moment, all was deathly silence. Then, with a sound like a firecracker imploding, all the lights flared on at once and the tallest of the desks said, loudly, “This is the Bureau of Investigation—we’re here to inquire about the attempted homicide of a young human injured in this location at 3 PM mortal standard time. Do no attempt to run.”

Immediately after this was said, it was as if a thousand voices began talking at once.

“It wasn’t me!” “It was him!” “I know nothing!” “What’s going to happen!” “I like cheese!”

“QUIET!” bellowed the head Bureau, and all fell silent. “Who is in charge here?” he asked.

“I am,” two voices said simultaneously. A large oak Table waddled forward, along with a Stove from the opposite end of the store. Both exchanged tacit glares.

“Oh, don’t tell me that’s still going on,” one of the junior Bureaus murmured.

By “that,” he meant a feud between the furniture and the appliances in the shop, which was very much still going on, as anyone could tell. There was a distinct line between where the furniture ended and the appliances began.

Why the feud had ever begun went back a ways—all the way back to the invention of electricity—and none of them remembered who exactly had started it. Probably the forefathers of the Stove and Table, the two parties who presented themselves before the head Bureau so grimly.

“What happened earlier?” the Bureau asked. “Tell me exactly what you saw.”

The Table and Stove both glared at each other, as if daring the other to speak first. Finally, the Table said, “it was just a normal afternoon. Max, the owner, was showing a young couple around the shop, and their kid crawled beneath the sofa, and then Steven fell—”

“Intentionally, no doubt,” the Stove muttered.

“What’s that?” the Bureau asked. He turned to the sofa. “Are you Steven?”

“Yes,” the sofa said. “But I didn’t fall on purpose. Someone cut the wires!”

The Bureau sized up Steven rapidly. He no doubt saw a brash young creature, because that’s precisely what Steven was—arrogant, too aware of his own handsomeness, not inclined to be unselfish, though not, perhaps, inclined to be deliberately bad. “You claim it was an accident?”

“I didn’t say that,” the Sofa said and despite his bulk and his well-muscled cushions, the Bureau realized he was talking to a teenager.

“So you were framed?”

“Maybe.” Steven glared.

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“But who would cut the cords?” the oak Table asked. “Who would want to frame you?”

“It was Stove,” Steven said abruptly. “I know it was Stove.” It took a moment for this accusation to sink in, but once it did, a lamp fainted from shock and the fridge said some choice words about the sofa’s lack of respect for his elders, which was succeeded by general tumult in the shop.

“How dare you!” the Stove shouted, somehow managing to be heard above the clamor. “Officer, arrest this upstart!”

“QUIET!” the head Bureau shouted.

“Quiet? How can we possibly be quiet at a time like this?” shrieked a hysterical vanity. Everyone turned to stare as she began trembling. Before the Bureau or Table could silence her, she cried, “Don’t you see what this means? Max may shut us down! He was in such shock earlier—”

“We’ll be sent away—” shouted a set of drawers.

“Sold to thrift shops—”

This last threat was met with a collective shudder, among both furniture and appliances. Thrift stores meant death, degradation, and worse—cat-ladies on the prowl for old wares.

“All the more reason to find who’s responsible,” the head Bureau said.

“But—” the Stove began.

“Yes?”

“Fine. Make your inquiries. But Steven is guilty. It’s as plain as the tie on your top.”

“Why would I want to hurt a human?” Steven asked.

“I wouldn’t know,” the Stove growled. “I’m not a criminal.” Before it could come to blows, the Ottoman—a red and gold piece, around Steven’s age—darted forward.

“Well, if we are getting shut down because of what happened today, like Vanity said, we can’t spend our last night ‘making inquiries.’ We should party! Am I right?”

“Shut up, Otto,” Steven said. “I don’t want to party.”

“Well, the rest of us can,” Otto said.

“Not without me,” Steven said. “And I don’t want to party. Not now.”

Something passed between them—something threatening, like a jaguar and a viper looking askance at each other in the zoo. Finally Otto said, turning back to the other furniture, “We can party without Steven can’t we?”

This was met with shouts of approval from the barstools and recliners.

“I’m afraid the investigation can’t wait,” the head Bureau said.

“But it may be our last night!” Otto said.

“Yeah!” a recliner shouted. “Come on, man!”

“Just a little fun!”

“Let us!”

“Please!”

“Don’t be square!”

“Come on, man!”

“All right,” the Bureau said, relenting. “Do as you will. Just know me and my boys”—he gestured to the two Bureaus that stood to his right and left, looking very serious—“are going to be asking some questions, and if anyone has even a bottle of illegally manufactured varnish, I’m shutting it down before you can so much as hit the vase.”

One of the recliners said something lewd, which was met with raucous cries of enthusiasm from all directions, expect Steven Sofa, who looked almost as unhappy as the steaming Stove, like the quarterback who discovers that a member of the chess team has been voted Prom King over him. As someone who was generally the one having the parties, the irony of having a party on the eve of his potential imprisonment was not entirely lost on him. The horde dissolved back into furniture and appliances and the Ottoman could be heard giving directions for the liquor cabinets to dispense varnish freely, riding atop the crowd with ease.  

The officers had scarcely begun to move before someone turned up “Burning of the Midnight Lamp” on one of the two stereos salvaged from the mid-80s, and the lights went off, turning the shop into a club, albeit one where chairs prepared to drink themselves silly. Within moments, the store looked as different from a southern antique shop as a collector’s shot glass from a sippy cup.

“Boss, are you sure that was wise?” one of the subordinate Bureaus murmured as they squeezed between the rows, stepping over the prostrate form of the unfortunate lamp, who was still unconscious.

“Trust me, we’re never going to get any answers unless we get these guys off their guard,” the head Bureau answered.

“Yeah, but how will it help if they’re all stoned when we go to question them?” the other asked, watching nervously as a desk chair began dancing on the countertop with wild abandon and a fridge began doing some truly horrible karaoke on the appliance side.

“Trust me,” the Bureau said wryly.

“Hey! Psst!” someone said. They turned, but saw nothing. “Down here!”

They looked down, and discovered themselves to be directly beside a furtive-looking coffee Table, who was gesturing for them to approach, which they did. “I know who did it,” he hissed.

“You do?”

“Well, in theory, at least.”

“Ah,” the head Bureau said, exchanging knowing glances with his deputies. They knew how useful citizens’ “theories” generally were; that is, not very.

The coffee Table leaned forward conspiratorially, and the Bureaus obliged him by learning forward as well. “It was the Ottoman,” he hissed. “He cut the wires!”

“Why would the Ottoman want to frame Steven?” one of the deputies asked.

The coffee Table grew excited. “Well, don’t you see? Otto is always an accessory to the sofa. Never independent. Never free. You’ve seen what Steven’s like. He treats everyone like a servant, but especially Otto. He’s always been second-best. Steven always gets the best girls, has the coolest parties. The only way Otto could ever be free would be if Steven got sent elsewhere. He wasn’t getting sold anytime soon, given his role as the display prop. So when the kid crawled beneath . . . Otto saw an opportunity to make his number one problem disappear.” He paused, as if expecting them to cheer at his brilliance.

Instead, one of the Bureaus asked, “But how could he have possibly have gotten far enough up the wall to cut the wires without anyone else noticing?”

“I—well—I hadn’t figured that out yet, but it’s possible, isn’t it?” the coffee Table demanded. “It’s a viable theory! Right, coaster?”

This question was addressed to the coaster on the edge of the coffee Table, who replied, in a voice so quiet they could barely hear it over the fridge’s rendition of “Torn Blue Foam Couch,” “It’s possible, I suppose.”

“See, Cassandra says it’s possible!” the coffee Table cried.

“He did seem very set on having the party. Maybe he wanted to distract you,” Cassandra Coaster said, almost timidly.

“That’s true!” the coffee Table said triumphantly. “He’s clearly hiding something!”

“Perhaps,” the head Bureau admitted.

“So—you believe me?”

“Maybe. Thank you for your time. Brett, Baxter—let’s go.” He nodded to his two deputies, who followed him as he began to walk away.

“But you have to believe me!” the coffee Table cried.

“Thank you for your time,” the Bureau said firmly. “We’ll let you know the results of our investigation.”

Once they had gotten past the next aisle, Brett muttered, “Coffee Table seems a like nut.”

“I dunno,” Baxter said thoughtfully. “The Ottoman was awfully set on the party, and it wouldn’t be the first crime we’ve seen committed as a result of large furniture/small furniture tensions. Otto probably does hate Steven. There was some definite awkwardness between them.”

“Oh come on. You can’t possibly know that from observing them for two seconds,” Brett protested.

“Well, like the nut said, it’s just a theory,” Baxter said. “Right, boss?”

“It’s a possibility,” the head Bureau said. “But something tells me the Ottoman isn’t the only one with a grudge against Steven.”

They veered toward the barstools. “Boss—” Brett said.

“Trust me. If anyone knows about secret vendettas, it’s these girls.”

“Hey honey,” one of said barstools called, as if on cue. “You’ve been working too hard. I can show you a good time.” Several of her sisters twittered.

Baxter blushed and Brett fought like mad to keep his eyes off of their exposed legs. But their Sergeant appeared unaffected. “No thanks, love,” he said. “We’ve come to ask if you think the Ottoman had a reason to resent Steven Sofa.”

“Well, maybe,” the first barstool said, her curbside manner abruptly replaced by the cool, calculating appearance of someone about to sell something. In this case—information.

            But her transaction was ruined before it ever began. “I’ll tell you who does not like Sofa,” a neighboring stool burbled, drunkenly pouring half a bottle of varnish onto her seat.

            “Hush Barbara!” her sister snapped.

            “Oh, pipe down, Bambi,” Barbara said, mid-hiccup. “If I don’t tell them, someone else will.” She took another swig of her varnish, burped, and said, “Everyone knows Stove and Steven have been at each other’s throats ever since Stove found out Steven’s been seeing his daughter. Romantically.”

            “His daughter?” the Sergeant asked.

            “Monica Microwave,” Barbara clarified. “I don’t blame Steven, really. She’s the sweetest thing east of aisle seven and pretty, too.”

            “But . . . isn’t Monica an appliance?” Brett said, frowning in confusion. “Wouldn’t she be off-limits for someone like Steven? For someone who’s, you know, furniture?”

            “Well,” Bambi said, apparently forgetting her reluctance to divulge. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? Stove just can’t bring himself to admit his baby girl’s gotten involved with a sofa. Steven Sofa, no less. As you can imagine, he doesn’t exactly have a clean reputation with the ladies.” This was followed by a fit of drunken giggles and a few comments on the size of his cushions.

            “He’s a player,” Barbara sighed. “All the good-looking ones are. Of course, I don’t blame him for going for Monica. She was probably a breath of fresh air after that shrew, Michelle.”

            “Michelle?” the head Bureau asked.

            “She’s a mattress,” Barbara said, tilting to the bedding aisle for emphasis. “She had a fling with Sofa before Monica batted her buttons at him and got him into a flutter. She’s still not over him, no matter what she may say.” Both barstools sighed. “Men. What pigs.”

            “Well, thank you for your help,” the Sergeant said. “That should be enough to go on for now. Brett, kindly untangle Baxter from his new lady friend.”

            Baxter started and turned to see that Baxter had, indeed, been otherwise occupied for some time. “Baxter!” he shouted.

            Baxter started, and, half-grinning, half-blushing, tipped a tittering barstool off his lap. “Yes. Coming.” He hurried over, tucking his drawers in on the way over.

            The head Bureau said, “Brett, you and Baxter head over to Michelle, start asking questions. Find out whether or not she’s still as heartbroken as Barbara said. It could be she’s behind this thing.”

            “You want us to question her on our own?” Brett asked.

            “Yes, I do. Think you can handle your first independent assignment?”

            “Yes, Sir!” Brett said, standing a little taller.

            “I trust you won’t get distracted, Baxter?”

            “No, Sir,” Baxter replied, blushing in earnest.

            “Good. Meet back at aisle three in half an hour.”

            “But Sir, where are you going?” Baxter asked.

            “I need to ask Stove a few questions. And Monica.”

            The two deputies nodded and soon the trio had parted.

            Michelle wasn’t hard to find. She was situated in a set of massive box springs that dominated the end of aisle nine, almost like a queen lounging on her throne, though she herself was by no means large. She did, however, have a way of filling up space, as if she were accustomed to others noticing her—no doubt a side-effect of prolonged self-absorption. She glared at them as they drew near. “Who are you?”

            “We’re from the Bureau of Investigation,” Brett said. “We just need to ask whether or not you know Steven Sofa.”

            “Oh, him,” she sniffed.

            “So you know him?” Baxter asked.

            “Yes, I knew him,” she said, emphasizing the past tense. “But I dumped his sorry cushions ages ago.”

            Ever the provocateur, Baxter smirked. “We heard he’d left you.”

            “Well, if he wants to go chase after some tramp in appliances, that’s his problem,” Michelle snapped.

            “Tramp . . . as in Monica?” Brett asked.

            “Yes. Her.”

            “Do you think he was framed? Or did he really injure that child? Is Steven the sort of sofa who would do that?” Brett asked. “Does he have any violent tendencies?”

            “Well, he was obviously the one who fell on the human,” Michelle said. “Maybe he did it on purpose. How should I know?”

            “But do you think he did it?”

            “Well, no. Yes. I dunno . . . he’s obviously heartless enough to dump me. Maybe he would injure a child.”

            “And I guess that’s your purely unbiased opinion?” Baxter asked.

            “You can laugh!” Michelle said. Had she been a venomous snake, she would have spat venom in their direction. “If you knew what Steven had done to me, you wouldn’t find it quite so funny. Today, I’ve been so upset I couldn’t even move. I’ve just been sitting here thinking about all the time I wasted with that loser. Thank heavens I’ve moved on. I’m dating Matthew now, and I’ve never been happier,” she said, looking very unhappy.

            “I take it Matthew is a mattress, like yourself,” Brett asked.

            “Yes. I was a fool for ever dating out of bedding,” Michelle said. “The furniture up front are animals. But Steven’s the worst.”

            At that moment, a very drunk bookcase went flying over their heads, landing among the wardrobes with a tremendous crash. For a second, the store went completely silent. Then the bookcase managed to rise unsteadily, grinning stupidly, and bellowed, “That was epic!” or possibly “There’s a pig!” Either way, the recliners went wild and the gaming consoles began to chant. “FREE LIFE! FREE LIFE!”

            Brett shook his head and forced his attention back to the task at hand. “Do you know where we could find Matthew?”

            “Over there,” Michelle said, indifferently. “Next to the red headboard. Will Steven go to prison?”

            “We can’t know that for certain at this point in the investigation. Thank you for your time.” The two deputies nodded their gratitude and were just walking away when Michelle asked, “Is it very miserable in furniture prison?”

            Baxter answered, “That’s generally the purpose of prison.”

            She smiled with true malice. “Good.”

            Matthew was large, beige, and irritable. Though he did have good reason to be; he was asleep when the two deputies approached him, so Baxter prodded him in the piping.

“Geez! What is it?” Matthew snapped, upon waking to find two Bureaus looming over him. He hastily sat up.

            “We’re from the Bureau of Investigation,” Brett said. “We’re here to confirm that you are dating Michelle Mattress.”

            “Yeah. What about it?”

            “Michelle says she and Steven Sofa broke up a little while ago, before she started dating you. Do you think she’d have any motivation to frame him?” Baxter asked.

            “No. But that (insert expletive of choice) Sofa would deserve it if she did.”

            “Where was she this afternoon?”

            “With me.”

            “At her box springs?”

            “Yeah.”

            “That’s funny,” Brett said. “Michelle said she was alone this afternoon.”

            “Well, I didn’t stay there the whole time.”

            “And where were you when you were not with Michelle?” Brett asked.

            “I was . . . none of your business where I was.”

            Baxter flashed his badge, which was pinned to the other side of his tie. “It is our business. A child’s life was threatened. We need answers.”

            Silence. Then, “I was over by the back,” Matthew muttered.

            Brett and Baxter turned to look where Matthew was gesturing to. “Near the inventory room?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Is there anyone that can corroborate that story.”

            “I—no.”

            “We won’t tell Michelle if you were with another Mattress,” Baxter whispered, none too helpfully.            

            Matthew glared. “I wasn’t with anyone.”

            “That’s your final story?”

            “I—yeah.”

            Baxter and Brett exchanged curious looks. Matthew looked distinctly uncomfortable, and it was pretty obvious he had been with someone. But why wouldn’t he tell them who it was? “Thank you for your time,” Brett said at last, and he and Baxter began making their way to the spot where they’d agreed to meet Sergeant.

            “Well that was weird,” Baxter said, puzzled.

            “He’s up to something.”

            “Like what?”

            “I dunno. He doesn’t seem overwhelmingly jealous of Steven, but he doesn’t seem to really like the guy either. Maybe he was cutting the strings. Except if he was in the back, a distance away from Steven, he couldn’t possibly cut the wires.”

            “Unless he’s lying about where he was,” Baxter said.

            “True, but even if we were up front, how could he possibly cut the cords suspending Steven without anybody seeing? I mean, neither of them are exactly small, are they?” Brett asked.

            “Maybe someone saw but they’re just covering up for Matthew,” Baxter suggested. “But I don’t know why they would—he doesn’t seem like he wins many popularity contests around here.”

            “The Ottoman might win a popularity contest,” Brett observed, watching said item of furniture as he crowd-surfed by, cheering. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but maybe that coffee Table was right. Maybe they’re covering up for Otto. He’s small enough. He could have cut the cords.”

            “Nah,” Baxter said. “No one’s going to side with an Ottoman over a Sofa.”

            “Well, he’s hiding something.”

            “They all are,” a voice behind them said. The two deputies started, then realized that voice belonged to their Sergeant.

            “What did you find out?” Brett asked.

            “I’ll tell you on the way. Follow me,” he said, and they began following him through the appliances section. Once they had passed the blenders, Sergeant began, “The barstools were right. Monica Microwave admitted to seeing Steven romantically, despite her father having forbidden it. He’s none too happy. Stove would barely let me speak to her.”

            “Could Michelle have done it out of jealousy?” Baxter asked.

            “Maybe, but wouldn’t she target Monica?” Brett said.

            Brett told him about Michelle and Matthew’s stories, then about the Ottoman. “It doesn’t make any sense,” Brett said.

            “It will. We just need a fresh perspective. I think I have an idea, but I need a little help.” With that, he mounted a heap of boxes that had been piled in the corner and clambered up the back of a tall gun safe. His two deputies, both confused, followed him. From the top of the safe, they could survey the revelry with ease despite a lack of light.

            The furniture and appliances had gone completely wild—straying far beyond their display sections, dancing enthusiastically to “Broken Chairs” on repeat. The three Bureaus watched as a completely soused Toaster attempted to flirt with a Blender, then pitched off the counter mid-line. He landed hard and promptly began snoring face-down on the linoleum. The blenders cackled mercilessly at his humiliation and began jumping off the counter themselves, shrieking so passionately, the gaming consoles on the other side of the shop paused their poker game (high stakes) to see who was making all the noise.

            “What a mess,” Brett said, disgusted.

            “Are you kidding? This is awesome.” Baxter was grinning. “Wait, what are we doing up here again?”

            “Gaining additional perspective,” Sergeant said. Then, addressing a ceiling fan they were now eye-level with, “Excuse me, Sir, could you tell us what you saw at three PM this afternoon?”

            The ceiling fan sighed. “I’m a woman, so it’s ma’am. And I’ll tell you what I saw, but you have to do something for me.”

            “All right,” Brett said. “What do you want?”

            “Could you scratch my nose?”

            “What?”

            “My nose—right above the switch—”

            Brett hesitantly applied one of his corners to the spot which the fan was referring to and scratched, uncertain if that qualified as a “nose.”

            “Ah—much better,” she sighed. “What did you want to know?”

            “Did you see a huge mattress by the back inventory room this afternoon?” Brett asked. He looked at Sergeant to make sure this was a good question. Sergeant nodded encouragingly.

            “Yeah, I did,” the fan said. “A mattress and some other guy.”

            “Another mattress?” Baxter asked, thinking of Michelle.

            “No, a dishwasher. No—a Stove. Yeah, a Stove.”

            The head Bureau smiled, as if this confirmed his suspicions. “Did you see if they had anything out?”

            “Some sort of machine-looking thing. It was yellow. But I couldn’t see exactly what it was.”

            “Did you see anyone near Steven Sofa at the time of the crime?” Brett asked.

            “No, I didn’t. I have no idea who cut those cords.”

            “Not even the Ottoman?” Baxter asked.

            “No,” the fan said after a moment’s thought. “The Ottoman was on the appliance side.”

            “He—wait—what?” Brett asked. “Why would he be on the appliance side?”

            “Beats me,” the fan said, shrugging her blades.

            “Was he by chance near the back of aisle thirteen?” the head Bureau asked.

            “Actually, he was,” the fan said after a moment of thought. “How did you know that?”

            “Guessed. It fits the timing. Thank you for your time,” he said.

            “I—no problem,” she said, probably surprised that what little information she’d provided had been enough to solve the mystery.

            She wasn’t the only one. As all three Bureaus clambered back down the gun safe, Baxter asked, “What does all that mean?” They had hurried to the front of the store, their bulk barely squeezing through the rows before Sergeant answered.

            “It means we have some arrests to make,” Sergeant said at last. “Baxter, I need you to go to aisle thirteen.”

“Why?” Baxter asked. The head Bureau leaned forward and whispered something to him. Baxter looked startled, but nodded and strode away.

            “Brett, go to the inventory closet. You should find a mechanism that’s been recently used. It’ll be yellow, probably say Bissell on the front. Bring it up here.”

            “I—all right, boss.” Brett hurried away, clearly confused.

            The head Bureau turned to the light switch beside the door. After one final second surveying the party, he turned on the lights all at once. The yellow bulbs flared to life mercilessly, and the stores’ occupant let out a simultaneous moan as their bleary eyes were forced to adjust.

            “CAN I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION,” he shouted. The music was shut off, and the sudden quiet made the seriousness of the situation palpable. “I have some information I believe you need to hear.”

            Steven Sofa, who had, for once, not been participating in the party due to the possibility of his imminent imprisonment, hurried forward. “Did you find him? The guy who framed me?”

            “I’ll explain everything,” the Bureau promised.

            There was a rush as furniture and appliances jostled each other for a spot at the front of the store; everyone wanted to know what exactly they had witnessed at three PM that day. And if Steven was going to jail.

            Among those pushing their way forward was a microwave. “It wasn’t Steven!” she cried. “I know it wasn’t! I couldn’t tell you earlier because my father—”

            “Hush, Monica!” the Stove said, on his daughter’s heels. (Figuratively, of course. Microwaves don’t have heels.)

            “You can’t make me!” Monica said.

            “Well, if he can’t, I will,” Michelle growled, emerging from nowhere and looking like she wanted to send Monica someplace a lot further south than the prison.

            “Michelle!” Steven exclaimed, gaze darting between former and present lover.

            “Go to hell, Steven,” Michelle said. “And shut up your tramp of a girlfriend if you know what’s good for her.”

            “Monica, you can’t get involved,” Steven said. “I’m in enough trouble without dragging you into it.”

            Monica trembled but kept her attention fixed on the Sergeant. “I know he didn’t do it. I know—my father—”

            “Yes, I know,” the Sergeant said.

            “You—you do?”

            “Yes. At least, I know that your father didn’t frame Steven,” he said, looking at Monica kindly.

            “He didn’t? But this afternoon—”

            “I believe I can explain.” Then, louder, “Steven”—everyone inhaled— “is innocent.”

            The furniture and appliances began murmuring. Steven appeared to deflate in relief. Monica choked.

            “WHAT?” the Stove roared. “He is not!”

            “I can explain,” the Bureau said. “At three PM today, you all thought you saw one thing. But in truth, there were many variables in motion. Steven did plunge to the floor, severely injuring a human boy. But he did not cut the cords that had previously suspended him from the ceiling, keeping him a safe distance from the floor.”

            “Prove it,” the Stove snarled.

            “First I should set the stage, don’t you think? Where were you at three PM today, Stove? Won’t you tell us?”

“I don’t know what you’re referring to.”

“You and Matthew were in the inventory room.”

“That’s not—”

“I have an eyewitness account placing you there at the time of the incident,” Sergeant said. “The rest is conjecture on my part, but hardly difficult to fill in. You and Matthew were working together to humiliate Steven, though for different reasons. Matthew was worried his girlfriend had lingering feelings for Steven and you were threatened by his advances on your daughter. So you conspired to use this—Brett, bring it forward please—”

The crowd shifted and strained to catch a glimpse of the large yellow thing Brett held, something that looked a lot like—

“An upholstery cleaner?” the Table gasped, articulating the horror that all the furniture felt at the sight of this most dreaded thing.

Upholstery cleaners were horrible, sucking mechanisms used to torture and interrogate; they sucked the very fabric off of furniture. Everyone knew this. And everyone suddenly realized why Matthew and Stove had been contemplating its use.

“Yes,” the head Bureau said. “An upholstery cleaner. Which they were planning to use to strip Steven of his fabric, in order to humiliate him.” The crowd gasped. Steven blanched.

“Daddy, how could you?” Monica cried.

“Matthew,” Michelle said, voice as choked as Monica’s, though the emotion was not that of disappointment. “Would you really have done that for me?”

“Oh baby,” Matthew sighed. “You know I would.”

They embraced as only mattresses can, and the Sergeant cleared his throat. “Well, not quite the response I was expecting, but all right.”

“Then who framed Steven?” the Ottoman asked.

“You—”

“Me?”

“—did not. Though you were planning on murdering someone else.” The coffee Table gasped and began to jump up and down, jostling the coaster.

“I knew it! I knew it all along!”

“Yes,” the Sergeant said. “You weren’t far off. Ottoman did feel resentful of Steven. Didn’t you? Got tired of being an accessory piece. You wanted recognition, and you were willing to murder to get it. Baxter? Where is Baxter?”

The crowd disgorged the Sergeant’s second deputy, who said, “It’s right where you said it was, boss. It’d been tampered with recently. You could see someone had been clawing at it.”

“Thank you, Baxter. Yes, what my deputy is referring to is the master power strip, which all the appliances’ individual power strips are connected to. You can find it at the edge of aisle thirteen, where you were spotted at three PM this afternoon, Otto.”

It was Otto’s turn to blanch.

The head Bureau continued. “Otto was tampering with this strip this afternoon in the hopes of killing the furnitures’ long-time foe, the appliances.”

This was met with a terrible silence. Then, Monica said, timidly, “But turning off the power wouldn’t have killed us. We function without power while we’re on display, and it doesn’t hurt us.”

“True,” Baxter said, suddenly realizing the danger. “But while you’re on display during the day, you are plugged in even if you aren’t turned on. Ottoman was planning to short circuit the system, which would have killed all of you immediately, or left you severely paralyzed. The only reason he didn’t succeed was because he was distracted when Steven fell.”

This horrible news was greeted with another profound silence, which was broken by the Oak Table. “Otto,” he said slowly, “Is this true? Were you really trying to kill the appliances?”

“I—it—yes,” Otto whispered.

“But why?”

“I thought if I succeeded at that, I might be a real item. Not just Steven’s footstool. I thought I might be worth something more than a party organizer.” He gulped. “I messed up.”

“You could have died,” Steven said, eyes fixed on Monica. “You could have died.”

They hugged, which elicited a gasp of shock from everyone who hadn’t previously known they were together and a weak glare from Monica’s father.

“But then who did frame Steven?” Michelle asked, choosing to ignore Monica and Steven’s display of affection.

“Ah,” the Sergeant asked, adjusting his tie with the air of someone who’s figured out something difficult. “There is only one creature in this shop both small enough to cut the wires connecting Steven to the ceiling and in possession of sufficient motivation. Only one of you wanted Steven gone more badly than anyone else, though not for herself. For Otto.”

Otto, who was—as you can imagine—feeling pretty bad about himself, started. “Me?”

“You. There is one creature in this shop who loves you and, I suspect, has loved you for some time. This love made her angry on your behalf, frustrated at the way you were treated, until one day she saw a means to deliver you from the humiliation you were subjected to so regularly as the butt of Steven’s jokes.” The Sergeant exhaled. “The furniture I am talking about is, of course, Coaster.”

Everyone’s shocked gaze fell on Coaster, where she was perched, still on the now-astounded coffee Table’s left side.

“You?” Otto gasped.

Coaster let out a half-sigh, half-sob. “I’ve loved you for years. I . . . I thought maybe if I got rid of Steven, things would be easier for you, and you wouldn’t have to kill anyone by short-circuiting the power.”

“So you were willing to injure a human child?” Monica asked, incredulous.

Coaster visibly wilted. “I was,” she whispered. “For Otto.” She sobbed. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Otto,” Steven said shakily, no doubt unsure how to address someone who had been contemplating genocide. “I never knew that’s how you felt. About me teasing you, I mean.”

“Now you do.”

“Now I do,” Steven said, swallowing thickly.

The store was hushed. The rush of information was almost too much to digest. Then, the head Table turned to the Stove. “I think, in light of the Sergeant’s findings, that maybe we shouldn’t fight anymore. I never wanted any of the appliances to get hurt. Really.”

“Yes,” the Stove said, visibly upset. His broad shoulders drooped, both at the threat of his death which had been so narrowly avoided and the exposure of his attempted crime. They hugged. It was awkward, but when they released each other, they began to smile. Uncertainly, perhaps, given the extreme situation that had necessitated it, but then the other furniture began to cheer, and then the appliances hesitantly joined it. They would have toasted, but they’d all drunk their fill of varnish earlier. In truth, most of them were pretty soused.

The Bureaus looked at each other, sighing. They knew there would be arrests to make, paperwork to do, and a very unusual report to file with their supervisor, but in that moment, they were swept up in the emotion, the release, and so it wasn’t until they were exiting the store, the clock chiming early morning, that Brett asked, “Sir, how exactly did you know that Coaster loved Otto?”

“Yeah,” Baxter said. “And how did you know you could trust the ceiling fan?”

“I guessed. Coaster was small enough to have gone unnoticed as the one who cut the wires, and she looked at Otto the way Monica looked at Steven. It fit. And to the second, I didn’t. But her observations fit the circumstances. I took a chance.” He led his deputies out of the shop and onto the pavement, radioing someone back at base about coming to retrieve a certain Ottoman and Coaster, neither of whom was particularly upset about prison, given the fact that they’d be going together. They looked back at the shop. The lights were off, the evidence of the party rapidly disappearing.

“But Sir!” Brett said. “You . . . guessed?”

“Deputy, fifty percent of investigations are guesswork. Sometimes you have to rely on something other than objective fact, something less tangible but no less real.”

“But wasn’t that kind of a risk?” Baxter asked, as they climbed into the armored vehicle and streaks of orange slowly transformed the night sky into the beauty of early dawn.

The head Bureau smiled, a little wry. “Deputy, love is risk.”

And with that, the large tank rumbled away with the Bureaus inside, going back to the world where police work was performed by desks, where it chimed thirteen o’clock, where no human has ever been. A casual observer would never have known, looking at the Langman, Georgia street, that anything unusual had ever occurred.

As for Steven and Monica. . . well, I will leave it to the patient readers to imagine how exactly a sofa and microwave go about expressing affections in any way resembling what us humans might call a storybook-worthy kiss.