Darkness Falls (12 page)

“He was scratched up pretty badly when he got here,” the doctor told them. “He didn't even know who he was when he wandered in. We had to identify him from his driver's license. We're going to keep him overnight for observation, but you can have a few minutes with him in private before we move him upstairs.” With that, the doctor left the room.

“All right, Mr. MacLaughlin,” Kanekahana began, standing over his bed, “suppose you start from the beginning and tell us just what happened this afternoon.”

“I—I drove up to the observatory earlier today,” MacLaughlin said in a weak voice. “I had work to do. but on my way into the building I was waylaid by Tim Wheeler—”

“Wheeler?” Kanekahana said to Joe and Frank with a raised eyebrow.

“No, it's not what you think,” MacLaughlin stopped him. “He just wanted to interview me. Well, I said yes, and we went off to an empty room at the observatory. Afterward he left, and I went to the parking lot to get some notes that I'd forgotten in the van. I was a few feet from it, when there was this enormous blast. It lifted me right up into the air, and the next thing I knew I was lying in a thorn bush on the side of the mountain. I guess I was thrown
over the railing of the parking lot. But I didn't know that at the time. I didn't even know who or where I was for a while.”

“Someone blew your van up,” Kanekahana volunteered. “You were lucky they set the radio-controlled bomb off a few seconds too early. They were probably anxious and pressed the button before they meant to.”

“What happened then?” Frank asked MacLaughlin.

“Well, I felt kind of dizzy and lost, like I said, and I just started walking downhill. I realize now, of course, that I should have gone back up to the observatory. I just kept walking and walking. I didn't even feel my cuts until I saw the blood on my clothes. I made it down to the main road, and some guy in a truck picked me up and gave me a lift into town. He dropped me off outside the hospital. I guess I passed out at that point because the next thing I knew, I was in this bed.”

“Mr. MacLaughlin,” Kanekahana said, “I have some bad news for you. Richard De La Rosa shot himself today.”

MacLaughlin's eyes widened, and he sat up slowly. “He's dead?”

Kanekahana nodded. “Suicide. He left a note saying he'd killed Dr. Ebersol. Apparently, he'd been stealing from the foundation. He admitted that, too.”

MacLaughlin was truly stunned. “Michele,” he whispered. “Did he mention her?”

“Michele?” Kanekahana echoed. “Why, no. What makes you ask?”

MacLaughlin was staring into space, nodding his head slowly. “I'll bet Michele drove him to it,” he muttered. “Maybe she even killed him and made it look like suicide.”

“What?” Joe asked.

“I'll bet she killed him like she killed Dr. Ebersol,” MacLaughlin added quietly.

“You're saying Michele Ebersol killed her husband?” Frank asked.

“She
and
De La Rosa,” MacLaughlin said. “They were in it together, I'm sure of it. Now she's gotten rid of her partner, too. She's probably on a plane to Australia.”

Kanekahana stared hard at the assistant. “Mr. MacLaughlin,” he said, “what makes you think De La Rosa and Michele Ebersol conspired to murder her husband?”

“Because,” MacLaughlin said, “they conspired in everything! They were both stealing from Dr. Ebersol's foundation. They were in love, too! They wanted to get rid of Ebersol so they could have the profits from his work and the foundation's money. Michele has always wanted the foundation as her own. She plans to take credit for the exploded planet discovery, but none of it was her work. Not
that that would stop her. And now that she's gotten rid of her husband and her partner, she'll probably come after me, too.”

MacLaughlin's eyes widened in fear as the revelation seemed to dawn on him. “The car bomb! She must have set it! Captain, you've got to arrest her!”

As Frank listened, a number of thoughts floated through his mind. He remembered how Michele had vowed to be rid of MacLaughlin, and what the scientists had said about the exploded planet theory being Everett MacLaughlin's work.

“But if they were in love, why would she kill De La Rosa?” Kanekahana asked MacLaughlin. “His death showed every sign of being a suicide.”

“Michele doesn't like to share,” MacLaughlin told him. “Without De La Rosa she'd have it all, I guess—the foundation, the money, the fame. She ordered me to bring her the videotapes of the eclipse recorded by my detectors. She told me that if I didn't give them to her, she'd cut me out of any new grants and ruin my career.” He turned to the Hardys, an urgent tone in his voice. “Maybe you two can stop her. Please don't let her destroy what Dr. Ebersol worked so hard to create!”

The captain turned to his men and said, “Don't let this guy out of your sight. Come on,
you two,” he added to the Hardys. “We're going to check in on Michele Ebersol.”

They were out of the hospital in no time, and racing in a caravan along the coastal highway, with the captain's siren screaming.

“Do you think there could be anything to what MacLaughlin said?” Joe asked Frank as they raced to keep up with the police car ahead of them.

“It's possible, I guess,” Frank said with a shrug. “There's definitely a lot more to Michele Ebersol than meets the eye. But I don't see how she could have set off that car bomb or killed De La Rosa. She was under police guard all day. Right?”

“We'll soon find out,” Joe said. “Anyway, maybe she just drove De La Rosa to do what he did. You know? I mean, maybe she had some kind of hypnotic influence over him. It's been known to happen when a guy really falls for a woman.”

“The last time we saw De La Rosa,” Frank commented, “he seemed more afraid of Michele than in love with her.”

“Well, maybe by that time she'd turned on him,” Joe offered.

“Or he on her,” Frank said. “Remember, she was the one passed out on the surfboard, not him.”

Just then they arrived at the beach house.

An ambulance, sending off circular beams of red light, sat in the driveway.

“Now maybe Kanekahana will believe this case isn't over yet,” Joe muttered as Frank pulled over and parked. The brothers both stared at the front door of the beach house, where paramedics were coming through carrying a stretcher.

Lying on the stretcher was the motionless Michele Ebersol.

The Hardy brothers got out of the car and hurried over. “What's going on?” Joe asked one of the paramedics walking beside the stretcher, holding a plastic container of intravenous fluid.

“Looks like an overdose of sleeping pills,” the paramedic told them.

“Is she going to be all right?” Frank asked.

The medics had reached the back of the ambulance and began hoisting the stretcher up. “We're going to try electric paddles and a stomach pump,” said the one who'd answered them first, a grim expression on his face. “But I'm not getting my hopes up. I think we got here a little too late. She has no pulse—no pulse at all.”

T
HERE WAS
no time to get Michele Ebersol to the hospital. The paramedics set to work trying to revive her in the back of the ambulance. They used electrified paddles to shock her back to life. A third medic began setting up a stomach pump.

Kanekahana was furious, barking curses at everyone around him, but Frank knew the captain had to be the angriest with himself. If he hadn't taken the guard off Michele after De La Rosa's body was found, this wouldn't have happened.

“Where did you find her?” the captain asked the paramedic who was setting up the pump.

“Out by the pool,” the young man answered.
“There was an empty bottle of sleeping pills on the ground beside her. Looks like she meant to do away with herself.”

Kanekahana kicked a nearby ambulance tire and spat out a few grumbled words. “Did she leave a note?” he asked.

“Not that we saw,” the paramedic said.

“I'd better go check,” Kanekahana said, marching into the house. Frank and Joe hesitated, reluctant to leave Michele Ebersol while her life hung in the balance.

“There's nothing you can do for her,” the paramedic with the pump said to them. “If we can save her, we will. Go on inside if you want.”

Frank nodded to Joe, and they hurried through the front door. Inside, Frank spotted two videocassettes on the living room floor in front of the VCR. “These are MacLaughlin's tapes, the ones she ordered him to bring to her,” Frank said, reading the labels. “She must have watched them.”

Joe walked over and picked up the tapes. “We're going to hold on to these for dear life,” he said. “They're not going to disappear the way our film did.”

Kanekahana entered the room from the french doors that led out to the veranda. “No note,” he said. “Still, it does look like suicide.”

“MacLaughlin claims Michele murdered De
La Rosa,” Frank pointed out. “But how could Michele have gotten away from the police who were watching her long enough to kill De La Rosa, and—”

“Forget it,” Kanekahana said. “There's no way! Not while my men were still here. The guy's just raving. The explosion must have rattled his brains.”

“Wheeler managed to give your guys the slip,” Joe said. “Why not Michele?”

Frank could tell from the flush that colored his face that Kanekahana didn't like hearing that.

“Joe, I think the captain's right,” Frank pointed out in an effort to smooth the captain's ruffled feathers. “Michele's been watched carefully almost since her husband's murder. It would have been pretty hard for her to steal our film, push herself out to sea, set off that car bomb, kill De La Rosa, then come back here and kill herself!”

“That's right, wise guy,” Kanekahana snapped at Joe. “There's no suicide note, but that doesn't mean much. She might have been in cahoots with De La Rosa. Maybe De La Rosa meant to protect her by taking the rap himself. Or maybe she tried to kill herself because she was so upset over her husband's death. Or maybe over De La Rosa's, if he was
her partner. Or if one of my officers mentioned his death to her as they were leaving …”

He let out a sigh and shook his head. “I guess there are some things we'll never know—unless Mrs. Ebersol recovers, that is. If she dies, I'm going to have to close the case. I think we've gone as far as we can.”

“Not quite, Captain,” Frank said. “We still have that floating image of a head on our photograph taken during the eclipse. Maybe when we blow it up, it might reveal something more. And maybe—just maybe—Michele Ebersol will pull through and be able to tell us something.”

“Let's go see how she's doing,” Joe suggested, and the three of them went back out front. The paramedics seemed to be excited, and one of them came right over to Kanekahana.

“It looks like she's going to make it,” he said, wiping the sweat from his brow. “I've got to hand it to you, Captain. If you hadn't sent your men out here to find her, she'd have been dead for sure. She took a lot of pills.”

Kanekahana smiled for the first time that Frank could remember. “I had a funny feeling something might be brewing,” he said. “In this business you learn to trust your instincts. That's what I was just telling these two kids here.”

Frank had to smile at the captain's bravado, while Joe, who was standing behind the captain, rolled his eyes and grinned.

When the ambulance sped away into the night, its lights flashing, the captain turned to the Hardys and said, “That about wraps it up for now. You can find your own way back, can't you?”

“Sure, Captain,” Joe said. “But if you don't mind, we'd like to have a look at MacLaughlin's tapes of the eclipse first.”

“Well, if you're going to do that, maybe I'll watch, too,” Kanekahana said. “Not that I think they'll have anything new in them, but you never know.”

They all went back into the house and Frank flicked the TV on to Channel 3.

“Here we go,” Joe said, pushing the tape into the VCR. Soon, they were staring open-mouthed at the incredible video of the solar eclipse. There in full-color, computer-reconstituted images was the black circle, surrounded by a series of flares rising up from its surface. Above and behind the flares, Frank and the others saw a faint series of specks—the planetary debris that Dr. James Ebersol had predicted would be there. Proof positive that another planet had once existed!

“There's the exploded planet Dr. Ebersol
was looking for!” Joe said, his eyes riveted to the screen. “Too bad he didn't live to see it.”

Frank and Joe clapped each other on the back excitedly, but Captain Kanekahana seemed only mildly impressed. “Well, I'd better be going,” he said, getting up and making for the door. “I need my sleep if I'm going to tie up this investigation properly. See you tomorrow.”