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“Because I’m the one who knows how? You want to fight me? Fine, fight me. But do itafterwe get this godawful stench out of the house!”
He laughed. “That’s the judge I know and love. OK. Go get changed, and then come back and show me what to do. But I’m cleaning the bath afterward.”
“Fine,” she said. “That’s what I justsaid.Except for cleaning the tub.”
He just grinned.
* * *
Troy had been right,Quinn quickly discovered. Bacon really, really didn’t enjoy getting a bath. Worse, whatever he’d rolled in had been about as big as he was, because it seemed to be all over his sausage-shaped body. Including on hisstomach.And his head. Oh, that was terrible.
Beckett was leaning half-in, half-out of the tub, his blue-plaid flannel shirt rapidly getting soaked, holding a squirming, yipping Bacon down while Quinn lathered him up with the soapy contents of the bucket and set about scrubbing. Troy, after an early attempt to help by leaning in himself, had pitched forward off his feet and ended up climbing into the tub fully dressed. He was inexpertly “helping” Quinn scrub Bacon, and was as wet as if he’d been swimming, his excited, high-pitched voice competing with Bacon’s yelps. And Beckett was laughing.
Janey said from the doorway, “You’re all mad. This isterrible.Why are you laughing?” But she was struggling not to laugh herself, Quinn was pretty sure.
Quinn said, “Because it’s objectively hilarious? I may never get the stink out of my work clothes, machine-washable or not, and all I was doing was standing near him! Bacon, you are a bad, bad dog. Was that afish?In the park? Because that’s what I smell. Dead fish.Rottendead fish. How, oh, how can anything smell this bad? How did you even walkhomewith him?”
“Why I didn’t become a homicide detective,” Beckett said, which made her snort and laugh more.
“I don’t think so,” Troy said. “I didn’t see any fish. Maybe it was a duck! Maybe somebody shot a duck, and Bacon likes ducks, so—”
Beckett said, “I like ducks, too. Á l’orange is good. Swimming in a pond is good, too. Dead, on my dog? Not so much.” And Quinn snorted again.
At that moment, Bacon gave a determined lunge, twisted his slippery self out of Beckett’s grasp, and attempted to leap out of the tub. His short little legs scrabbled at the edge, his black mask of a face twisted with effort, he fell back onto his butt and slid across the soapy surface of the tub, and Quinn was gone. Beckett was swearing and laughing and grabbing for the dog, Bacon was scurrying and sliding around the tub like a greased pig, Troy was shrieking, and Quinn was hanging over the side, laughing like a lunatic, losing her aim with the hand sprayer and getting Beckett right in the face.
“Oi,” he said, and grabbed at it. “That’s how you want to play?” He wrenched it from her and flicked it straight over her, and now,shewas shrieking.
“You guys areinsane,”Janey said. “I can’teven.”
“Oh,” Quinn moaned, “that’s socold.”Her T-shirt was sticking to her, and Beckett was hosing Bacon down again. He’d given up on grabbing him and was just following him with the sprayer as he galloped around the tub, shot between Troy’s legs, collided with white porcelain, bounced off, and scrabbled for purchase again, his little legs going like pistons.
Quinn grabbed a towel from the rack, handed it to Beckett, and said, “Get him with this!” He dropped the sprayer to grab the towel, and it rolled over in the tub and sprayed her in the face again. She was gasping, groping for the knob to turn it off, finally finding it, and at last, there was a blessed lack of water-park activity.
Other than her entirebathroom.Troy was soaked from head to toe, the floor was a half-inch deep in water, Beckett’s hair was dripping, and hers was hanging around her face. And Bacon was squirming right out of the towel and shaking, droplets flying everywhere andstillmanaging to smell.
“There isn’t enough air freshener in the world,”Quinn said. “We’re going to have to shave him. He’sreallygoing to look like a rat then. A big, fat, stinky rat.”
Beckett choked and kept working with the towel, and Troy said, “We can’tshavehim! He’d be naked! He’d be embarrassed with the other dogs!” Which made Beckett and Quinn laugh more.
That was when the doorbell rang.
“That’s Violet,” Janey informed them. “Oh, myGod.I’m going to be, like, anoutcast.”
“Ask them to come in,” Quinn said. “Whoever drove Violet over. Suggest that they help you open all the windows and turn the heat up.” She grabbed another towel and started to work Troy over. Scrubbing at his hair, blotting his face, and telling him, “Let’s get your clothes off, and I’ll run upstairs and get you some dry ones. One good thing—you’ve already had half your bath tonight. Grab some more towels out of the cupboard there,” she told Beckett. “And you had better be springing for pizza delivery.”
“No worries,” he said. “I’m not cooking in that kitchen. We’re probably better off burning the whole house down. I also think I need a beer.AfterI clean this bath.”
She got Troy’s jeans wrestled over his feet, then stripped him of his sodden socks and underwear. “You know what? Pizza and beer sound great.With the windows open, and a fire in the stove. We’ll pretend we’re camping. Something died in the woods, but it’s otherwise extremely romantic. Take off your clothes.”
Roxanne’s voice at the bathroom door, then. “And to think I was worried that this was going to be awkward for you.”
25
TURNING UP THE HEAT
Beckett did take off his shirt. First the flannel one. How far gone was she, that the sight of him tugging his shirttails out of his jeans and unbuttoning his shirt was making her go a little weak in the knees? He did the cuffs, then, and she watched that, too, because she seemed to have turned to stone here.
Roxanne said, “I could dry the dog, I guess. Where’s your hair dryer, Quinn?”
