Jack stared at the box for a long moment. "Elton John or not, be advised that I have a tire iron in the back."
The music stopped immediately. But I could have sworn the box itself was emanating a sense of injured dignity.
Or maybe I was finally losing it. Now I was ascribing emotion to a box.
On the other hand, it was aFaebox. . .
"Jack."
"Yes?"
"I need ice cream. Lots of ice cream."
"Okay."
"And Jack?"
"Yeah?"
"Nigel was lying. About the day Earl died."
* * *
We sat on my front porch in the swing eating ice cream cones (strawberry cheesecake for me, chocolate mocha for Jack). Naturally, I'd had both ice cream and cones in the house, since ice cream was one of the four major food groups.
Since trying to talk over the increasingly loud and petulant tunes coming from the music box had been an exercise in annoyance—apparently its feelings were hurt—we'd tossed it on the back seat but still waited till we got back to my place to continue our conversation.
On the way, we'd called the police station but Susan, sounding stressed, told us she'd released Lorraine on her own recognizance and she wished to God that people would quit calling her since she was only doing her job and didn't I have better things to do than bother her?
Then she'd added a string of words in Spanish that made Jack's eyes widen appreciatively. I didn't ask him to translate.
I tried Lorraine three different times but there was no answer and we decided we shouldn't go over in person in case she was exhausted and sleeping from her ordeal. So, back to my place after all. We'd left the music box in the car, but when we came back out to the porch, it sat in the exact center of a small table next to the swing with my cat Lou curled up around it.
The music box had been playing theStar Trektheme song.
"I still don't know how the stupid box knew I’d named my cat after Lieutenant Uhura," I muttered.
Jack laughed. "Weird, but ultimately harmless. I like it better than I liked the Doltar."
I couldn't argue with that.
"Okay, you said Nigel was lying. What made you say that?"
"His ears."
Jack stared at me over his giant cone. "What?"
"His ears. Nigel was the sweetest, kindest dance teacher ever, but he can't lie without his ears turning pink. Molly figured that out in the first few weeks of our lessons. He always told everybody we'd done so well, but sometimes his ears would turn pink. And it was usually after he told me 'nice singing,'" I admitted, amused in retrospect, although it hadn't been all that funny at the time.
"Poor tiny Tess." Jack leaned over and, just when I thought he was going to kiss me, took a big bite out of my ice cream.
"Hey!"
"If he was lying about Earl's last day, why did you pull me out of there? We should have kept after him until he talked."
I shrugged. "Maybe, but I doubt Erin would have let him. She's insanely protective of him—"
"A monster in love," Jack murmured, his eyes hardening. "She's not wrong, Tess. I don't have the right to ask you to—"
