Darkness Falls

by Franklin W. Dixon

  “Did either of you see anyone go into or out of this tent during the eclipse?” the captain asked.

  “No, sir,” Joe told him,

  “I see,” the captain replied crisply, making a note. “And do you happen to know of any dispute or hard feelings between Mr. Wheeler and Dr. Ebersol?”

  “Well,” Joe began reluctantly, “Mr. Wheeler was pretty open about not liking Dr. Ebersol.”

  “But I wouldn’t rush to any conclusions, officer,” Frank interrupted quickly. “Mr. Wheeler doesn’t seem like the kind of man who’d—”

  “I’ll ask the questions, if you don’t mind,” the captain said, cutting him off.

  “Of course,” Frank said, backing down and feeling like a total idiot.

  “Officer, my brother Frank and I are here as Dr. Ebersol’s assistants, but we’re detectives back home,” Joe offered. “If we can help …”

  “We’ll see,” the captain told him. “My name’s Kanekahana, by the way.” Then he turned to Everett MacLaughlin and asked, “Who are you, and how did you get here?”

  “I’m Everett MacLaughlin, Dr. Ebersol’s assistant,” MacLaughlin answered. Frank noticed that his eyes were still fixed on Ebersol’s dead body, which was now being put into a body bag by the paramedics.

  “Were you aware of any problem between the doctor and this man here?” the captain asked, indicating Wheeler with a toss of his head.

  “The only thing I know is that Mr. Wheeler was once engaged to Mrs. Ebersol,” MacLaughlin said.

  “Is that so?” the captain asked, nodding his head. “Very interesting.”

  “Captain, we need to give Mrs. Ebersol a sedative,” one of the paramedics said, her arm around the dead scientist’s sobbing wife.

  The captain waved his hand. “Fine, fine. I have all I want right now anyway. Get Wheeler out of here, too. We’ll take him with us when we go back to headquarters.”

  Outside, Frank could hear reporters calling out questions to the police and paramedics. He guessed that most of them had been at the observatory to write about the solar eclipse. Now they had a very different story to report.

  “Okay, everyone—please step outside, but don’t go too far. We need to dust this area for prints,” one of the officers directed.

  Frank noticed that Everett MacLaughlin wasn’t responding to the woman’s command. “Come on, Mr. MacLaughlin,” he said, giving him a light tap on the shoulder. “We have to go now.”

  “He’s dead….” MacLaughlin whispered, still staring at the spot where the body had lain. “He’s actually dead.”

  “Come on, pal,” Joe urged, gently pushing him out of the tent.

  “Here’s the plan, people,” the captain announced to the assembled group once they were all out of the tent. “I’m setting up shop in the administration office, that white building across the parking lot. First, I’ll deal with Mr. Wheeler and confer with my staff. Next I’ll speak with Mr. MacLaughlin. That should be in about twenty minutes. Joe and Frank Hardy, come by after that in, say, forty minutes.”

  Frank and Joe watched as Ebersol’s body was loaded aboard a helicopter for transit back to the morgue in Kailua, and the police cordoned off the tent with yellow tape. The eclipse was almost completely over now, and the sun, almost back to its full size, was reaching toward the horizon.

  “Hey, you two!” a voice called out to them. “Weren’t you Ebersol’s assistants?” Joe saw that the voice belonged to a reporter, one of a small group who were moving toward them. “What happened in there?”

  “Sorry,” Frank told them. “We’ll do our talking to the police.”

  “Suit yourself,” said the reporter. “Come on, gang,” he said. “Let’s go see if we can talk to Tim Wheeler before they haul him off to jail.” With that, they took off for the white building.

  “Well,” Joe said to Frank, “it looks like a pretty open-and-shut case, huh?”

  “I guess so,” Frank said, scuffing up the dirt beneath his feet.

  “It only could have been him,” Joe pointed out. “Everyone else was totally occupied during the eclipse. Wheeler was the only one around our tents without a specific job during those seven minutes.”

  “I suppose so,” Frank said, sounding unconvinced.

  “Not to mention the fact that Michele found him with the knife in his hand, leaning over the body. Say, Frank, do you think he exposed that wire the other night, too?”

  “I don’t know,” Frank said slowly. “But something about all this doesn’t feel right. How could it have been Wheeler in the van earlier today? He was right behind us on his bicycle.”

  “The van could have just had bad brakes,” Joe suggested.

  “You didn’t think so at the time,” Frank reminded him. “Besides, you heard Wheeler. He’s claiming he wandered in there and found the body. It’s possible he’s telling the truth, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, come on, Frank!” Joe protested as they walked across the parking lot to the white building. “You heard him say he hated Ebersol. He had a motive, he had opportunity, and if that knife wasn’t the means, my name’s not Joe Hardy!”

  “True,” Frank reluctantly agreed. “Still, I have a hunch Wheeler’s not the type to go around stabbing people.”

  Two police officers were emerging from the white building now, leading Tim Wheeler in handcuffs toward a helicopter that was just in front of Frank and Joe. Reporters swarmed around, taking pictures and shouting questions in vain. Moments later the chopper took off, sending a cloud of dust shooting out toward the Hardys. Frank and Joe had to turn away, and ended up squinting into the setting sun.

  “Hey!” Frank shouted, pointing toward the aluminized tent. “Look over there!”

  “What the—?” Joe asked, following his brother’s gaze. Someone was coming out of their tent, carrying a small bag. With the sun in their eyes, Joe and Frank found it impossible to identify who it was. The silhouetted figure was making for one of the trails that led down the mountain. “Let’s go check this out,” Joe said, rushing toward the tent.

  Joe had thrown the flaps aside and entered the tent just as Frank came up behind him.

  “Joe!” Frank said, sweeping the interior with his gaze. “The refrigerated bag with our film is gone!”

  “Come on,” Joe cried, sprinting out of the tent again. “Maybe we can catch up with whoever took it!”

  Outside, Frank bumped into a worried-looking paramedic. “Michele Ebersol is missing,” she told Frank. “Have you seen her?”

  “Sorry, we haven’t,” Frank told the woman. Turning to Joe, he added, “Maybe she took our film, Joe. Come on!”

  “I’m with you,” Joe said, bolting for the trail.

  The footpath was narrow and steep, and the brothers had to move single file, with Joe a few steps in the lead. They were expert climbers, though, and soon heard someone moving around the bend just in front of them.

  Joe rounded the corner carefully. At this point on the trail, the cliff dropped off on his left for about thirty feet straight down, while thick branches intruded on the right. He maneuvered his way through them, thinking how odd it was that the footsteps ahead of him had stopped.

  Then, suddenly, he knew why. A leg shot out from the undergrowth, sending him sprawling headlong toward the edge of the path.

  “Frank! Heeellp!” Joe shouted too late. He was already going over the edge!

  Chapter 5

  FRANK ROUNDED the bend in time to see Joe’s feet disappearing over the edge of the embankment. He dove, grasping for them, but came up with nothing. Joe’s scream died in the air as Frank winced, shutting his eyes.

  “Joe!” he shouted, scrambling to peer over the edge. “Joe, are you okay?”

  Thirty feet below him, Frank saw his brother, entangled in the underbrush. Joe wasn’t moving.

  “Joe!” Frank yelled again. The slope was steep, but using handholds in the jutting rock, Frank was able to make his own way down. By the time he got there, Joe was stirring. He was alive, at least
. Frank lifted Joe out of his tangle and laid him down on his back in the grass.

  “Oooohh,” Joe groaned. “Everything hurts. Frank, is that you?”

  “It’s me, Joe,” Frank said, kneeling beside him. “Do you think you broke anything?” Joe had a deep gash on his forearm and a big bruise on his cheek.

  “I don’t think so. You know I didn’t just fall, someone tried to kill me! They put out a leg and tripped me,” Joe said, wincing. “I slowed my fall by grabbing that branch up there.” He pointed up to where a brush grew straight out of the side of the embankment. Then he raised himself to his elbows. “Rats!” he muttered, “I can’t stand the idea that someone got away with our film! Do you realize this could be the end of the exploded planet theory? It makes me sick even to think about it!”

  “I know how you feel, but there’s not much we can do about it now. Come on, let me help you. We’ve got to get you back up to the observatory.”

  “Is my face totally swollen?” Joe asked, worried.

  “You got a bad bruise,” Frank told him. “That gash on your arm is pretty nasty, too. Let’s get you back topside.”

  It took a while for them to scramble back up the embankment, with Joe groaning all the way that his whole body ached. “We’ll get you a hot bath back at the hotel,” Frank told him.

  “We’re supposed to call Mom and Dad tomorrow morning and tell them how things went,” Joe said anxiously. “They’re not going to like it that we’ve gotten into so much trouble.”

  “The news of Ebersol’s murder is going to be on TV and in all the papers,” Frank replied. “There’s no way to keep them in the dark. But if it makes you happy, we won’t say anything about this little accident.”

  “Accident! I told you, somebody tripped me,” Joe cried, stopping on the footpath as they neared the observatory compound.

  “I heard you, and I do believe you,” Frank said. “So I guess whoever stole our film is even willing to kill to keep it—which makes me wonder about Tim Wheeler. He couldn’t have tripped you—he’s in police custody.”

  “That’s true!” Joe said, realizing that Frank was right. “Come on, let’s go tell that police captain. He’s waiting to interview us anyway.”

  Captain Kanekahana was not impressed with the Hardys’ story. “Look, guys,” he told them. “I’ll tell you now what I didn’t mention when I first met you: I’ve heard of you and your father. You’ve got great reputations, and I’ve got all the respect in the world for you. But I’ve got to be frank—I don’t see any possible connection between the Ebersol murder and what just happened on the path. I’ve got a pretty good murder suspect already in custody.”

  “How can you say that?” Joe asked as a paramedic applied a butterfly bandage to the gash on his forearm. “We told you about the van attempting to run us down. That couldn’t have been Wheeler either!”

  “True,” the captain admitted. “But it could have been a case of bad brakes. As for the theft of your film, I can think of lots of reasons for someone to steal it.”

  “Such as?” Frank asked.

  “Such as the fact that this mountaintop is full of scientists who would love to present that film as the product of their own research. And there are a fair number of media people up here, too. One of them could have taken it to back up a scoop about the discovery of the missing planet or to add an original angle on Ebersol’s murder. Hey, someone could even have snatched the film as a souvenir.”

  “We should have thought of those possibilities,” Frank admitted.

  “Hold on a minute, Captain,” Joe said, sounding annoyed. “Whoever stole that film wanted to keep it badly enough to risk killing me. That doesn’t sound like a souvenir hunter to me—or a reporter trying to get a scoop.”

  Kanekahana frowned. “It’s entirely possible that the ‘leg’ you tripped over was really a branch or vine, Joe.”

  “No way,” Joe insisted. “Whatever tripped me was thick, Captain. As thick as a human leg.”

  “One of the paramedics told us that Michele was missing,” Frank said, trying to get some useful information. “Have you found her yet?”

  “She just wandered away for a few minutes,” the captain said. “After she refused a sedative, she said she wanted to be by herself—which is totally understandable to me. The woman just lost her husband.”

  “But she was missing at the same time that someone tripped me,” Joe reasoned.

  “Please, I have enough trouble right now without searching for more,” the captain said with an impatient sigh. “Right now I’ve got a murder case on my hands. My plan is to get a confession from Wheeler by tonight, and once that’s wrapped up, I’ll help you find your film.”

  Joe started to protest, but Frank put a hand on his shoulder. “Forget it, Joe,” he said. “It’s no use. The captain’s mind is made up, and nothing we can say is going to change it.”

  “That’s right,” Kanekahana said, nodding and smiling. “And I advise you boys to stay out of trouble. Come by the station in the morning and sign your statements about the theft. I promise we’ll be on it the minute I get Wheeler squared away. Take it easy, okay? Everything is in capable hands, so you two can relax and enjoy your vacation in Hawaii.”

  Outside again, Joe turned to Frank and asked, “What do we do now?”

  Instead of answering, Frank motioned for Joe to follow him. He led his brother back inside the aluminized tent. There he felt inside the camera and pulled out the roll of film. “Just as I thought!” he said excitedly. “The thief missed our last roll of film—the one that was left in the camera!”

  “All right!” Joe said. “Maybe our luck is turning.”

  “We’d better hope it turns,” Frank said, “before it runs out altogether.”

  By the time Frank and Joe got back to their hotel, it was past nine ’clock, and the stars were out. The hotel pool was still open, and since it had a whirlpool attached to it, Frank and Joe decided that a swim and a soak would be better for Joe’s aches and pains than a hot bath. Putting the roll of film in the small refrigerator in their second-floor room, they changed into bathing suits and went downstairs.

  As they sat in the whirlpool, Joe said, “I don’t think a lot of that police captain. He seems awfully arrogant to me.”

  “I know,” Frank agreed, tapping his fingers on his leg. “And awfully anxious for a quick arrest, too. I’d hate to be Tim Wheeler tonight.”

  “But, Frank,” Joe said, “if the murderer isn’t Wheeler, who is it?”

  Frank thought hard. “I don’t know. But I’ll tell you one thing. I thought it was interesting that Michele Ebersol was missing at the same time our film was stolen. And when you think about it, she was alone out there during the eclipse, right outside Ebersol’s tent. Why didn’t she see anyone go in or out?”

  “Are you saying she killed her own husband?” Joe asked, incredulous.

  “It’s been known to happen, Joe,” Frank commented. “Hey, are you as hungry as I am? We forgot all about dinner.”

  “Famished,” Joe said, lifting himself out of the whirlpool. “Boy, I feel a lot better. Let’s go get some grub!”

  The brothers went back to their room to change, then headed out onto the main commercial boulevard. There they found a crowded fish restaurant, The Tradewinds, and squeezed into a corner table.

  After a dinner of mahi mahi, a local fish delicacy, and poi, a native Hawaiian staple, the brothers headed back to their hotel room for a good night’s sleep.

  “I’m ready to collapse,” Frank confessed.

  “Me, too,” Joe agreed. “It’s been quite a day.” He fished out the key and unlocked the door to their room. “Hey, Frank, do you think—”

  Joe froze in the doorway, Frank right behind him, staring into the darkness of their room. Inside, he could just make out what had made Joe stop short.

  It was the figure of a man!

  “There’s a killer on the loose,” said a voice in the darkness. “Take my word for it, you’re the n
ext victims.”

  Chapter 6

  BOTH BOYS BRACED for an attack. Joe clenched his fists, and Frank went into a deep karate horse stance. Reaching over, Joe quickly flicked on the light.

  “Wheeler!” he gasped. The reporter stood facing them, his face white. He held his hands up in front of him. At least he’s unarmed, Joe thought.

  “What are you doing here?” Frank wanted to know. He relaxed his aggressive stance, but only slightly. “How did you get out of police custody?”

  “I came here to tell you the truth,” Wheeler said. “I didn’t kill Ebersol. You’ve got to believe me. Please, I need your help!”

  “If you didn’t, who did?” Joe broke in.

  “How should I know?” Wheeler insisted. “But I’ll tell you what I do know—whoever did it is desperate enough to kill anyone who gets in the way, including you.”

  “You still haven’t answered my questions,” Frank pointed out.

  “My film company bailed me out,” Wheeler explained. “But not before that police captain grilled me for two hours. He wasn’t even going to take me before a judge for a bail hearing, except that I had no criminal record, there was no physical evidence to connect me to the murder—”

  “What about the knife in your hand?” Joe challenged him. “That seems pretty physical to me.”

  “I told you, I picked it up off the floor. It was a stupid thing to do. But there was no blood on the rest of me. If I’d killed him, I’d have been covered with it. Even the police captain could see that. He didn’t want to let me go, I could tell. For all I know he’s probably got someone following me.”

  “Why did you come here, then?” Frank asked.

  “Yeah,” Joe echoed. “You say you have no criminal record, but I’d say this looks like breaking and entering.”

  “Come on, Joe. I had to talk to you,” Wheeler said. “You two are detectives. You’ve got to figure out who really killed Ebersol!”

  “Suppose we do help you,” Frank said, sitting on the arm of the sofa. “If we agree, you’ve got to start by telling us everything you know.”