Putting on her thinking cap, Lucy reviewed her options. She had to get into the morgue to view the evidence. Just because she had been bodily escorted out, that did not deter her. Campbell women weren't squeamish or quitters. They were, however, adept at adaptation.
Watching an ambulance pull in, Lucy noticed the attendees wheeling a covered body on a stretcher into the morgue.
"A covered sheet… a body. Oh yeah!" she said, her pale blue eyes lighting with inspiration. Jumping into her van, she took off like a bat out of hell.
Thirty minutes later, Lucy had secured a gurney and sheets from St. Elligus Hospital, a parish hospital that was so busy a person could steal a dead body away with no one the wiser. This bizarre event had happened a time or two in the past, as Lucy knew from interviews on her show.
Unloading the gurney from the back of her van, Lucy cursed as she dropped one of the wheels on her toes. "Hell's bells," she said as she hopped around on one foot. "That really hurts." Who knew that a gurney was so heavy? Paramedics should get hazard pay.
Reaching inside her van, she grabbed a king-sized bottle of ketchup and began squeezing it into the sheets. After she finished, she rubbed it onto her pants, T-shirt, and arms, then smeared some into her hair. At last, closing the van doors, she began her secret trek to the morgue by route of a line of trees around the building. She wanted absolute silence, but finally decided that an occasional curse and the sound of twigs snapping under the gurney wheels would be acceptable.
"Damn it all," she said. A gurney had wheels and rolled, so therefore it should be reasonably easy to push across slightly uneven, unpaved ground. Who would have known it would take a bodybuilder to accomplish it? At this rate, she was going to miss her show, which just wasn't acceptable—not to her, and, more especially, not to her boss, Mr. Moody. She sped up, in spite of the protest from her aching muscles.
She had to duck far back into the tree's shadows with the gurney once, as an ambulance came to a screeching halt in front of the morgue. Waiting for the attendants to leave, Lucy began to get impatient, feeling terribly creepy standing smothered in ketchup in the shadows, cavernous darkness at her back.
Suddenly, her scalp started itching and she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, just like in a horror movie. Someone or something was watching her; she just knew it. It was probably plotting how best to eat her alive, or to drink her blood, to drain her dry. And she'd already applied the condiment.
A ghostly whisper of sound had her cringing, and Lucy felt the cold at her back. Beyond that were the black recesses and dark depths of the unknown. Her breathing quickened and she took deep breaths, the metallic taste of fear filling her mouth. She didn't want to be a blurb on the nightly news, "Talk show host found eaten like a hamburger." She didn't want to be any species' food for thought.
Reaching inside her pocket, she found her can of mace. She wanted to turn around and look, but fear held her immobile until the crackling of tree branches behind her preceded the word "Who?" That startled her into reacting.
With lightning reflexes born of fear, Lucy whirled, expecting to see some demon from hell, or some ghoul or ghoulish freak who liked to hang out near morgues. Instead, her eyes, now more accustomed to the darkness, met two other eyes staring at her from the top of an oak.
"Hooo," the sound came again.
Shoving a hand to her mouth, Lucy barely stifled her relieved giggles. Her menacing presence was an owl! Shaking her head, she stepped back and checked again on the ambulance. Its attendants were just now getting inside.
As she stood there, Lucy felt a sting on her ankle, followed closely by another. "Ouch!" She hopped on one foot, swiping at her pantleg, finally managing to raise it. Finding an ant, she moved away from the anthill she had disturbed with her gurney.
"What rotten luck! I'm somebody's food after all. Probably a fire ant too," Lucy grumped. She hated the tiny little menaces. Their bites were painful and left big red lumps. "What else can go wrong tonight?" she asked.
At last the ambulance sped away, and Lucy cautiously tugged and pushed the gurney over the uneven ground until she reached the back parking lot. Glancing right and left, like a sprinter in training, Lucy ducked low and prepared. Then she shoved the gurney hard in front of her, running, the gurney's wheels spinning crazily. Huffing and puffing, she started to feel dizzy. Still, she reached her goal.
Her victorious "Yes!" punctuated the night. With true grit, she had made it to the side of the building that was heaviest in shadows. "John Wayne, you'd be proud of me," she muttered as she stared at the entrance. "Now to wait for another ambulance."
She didn't have long. Within minutes, another ambulance had pulled up to the morgue, quickly and efficiently unloading its cargo and going inside, the glass entrance doors sliding open with a ping.
Lucy pushed her gurney hard, rushing for the doors. Glancing quickly inside, she noted that the security guard had again followed the ambulance attendants down the long hallway to find out all the gory details. Lucy had noted the guard's ghoulish curiosity earlier, after the first paramedics brought someone in. Campbell women had a keen eye for detail. After all, God was in the details—that and in cooking ingredients.
Shoving her gurney through the doors, Lucy pushed it quickly down to the opposite end of the hallway, where she settled the heavy metal stretcher. Lifting the messy sheet, she scrambled onto the gurney and threw the sheet over her body and face. All she had to do now was pretend to be dead, and they would wheel her into the main part of the morgue, right next to the autopsy room. Hopefully the ketchuped sheets would look like a bloody mess, and no one would be tempted to look underneath. Even if they did, she felt sure she could hold her breath for a few minutes. How hard could playing dead be?
More sounds came from the back of the morgue. Lucy listened intently, taking tiny breaths, hoping no one , could see any infinitesimal movements of the sheet over her mouth. She hoped she didn't hyperventilate. How inconsiderate of the paramedics and guard to keep yapping when she might do just that.
Finally she heard the other gurney being wheeled out, its wheels making a cha-chink sound on the worn linoleum tile, and the guard and the paramedics talking about the car wreck that had just claimed two lives. Suddenly Lucy heard them call a greeting.
"You here for the Jones autopsy, Detective DuPonte?" a male voice asked.
Lucy stifled a groan. Of all the morgues in all the world, why did the grand detective of the undead have to show up at hers? She supposed it was because Val had a nose for sniffing out conspiracies. Although her conspiracy wasn't important in the great scheme of things, it was still a conspiracy, which to Val would be like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Or red gunk in front of a vampire.
Remaining very still, Lucy held her breath as she heard him acknowledge the question. He then began walking toward the autopsy room, passing Lucy by.
Suddenly the footsteps stopped, only a few steps past the hallway where Lucy lay in wait. Lucy froze every muscle in her body, her heart pounding. Could this fiendish Don Juan of the undead hear her heart beating like a demented drum in her suddenly very right chest?
Four steps later she had her answer, as she felt the sheet being whisked off her. She didn't open her eyes, wondering briefly if she could just continue to play possum. She supposed things had taken a wrong turn at the condiment tray. Maybe she should have thought it through better.