Darkness Falls (5 page)

As soon as Frank finished a roll of film, he unsnapped the camera from its base and handed it to Joe. Joe then handed him the second loaded camera. Frank snapped it onto the base and set the motor drive in motion.

Over the intercom, Michele's voice crackled, informing them about the eclipse's progress.

“I never realized how long seven minutes could be,” Joe said.

When Bailey's Beads returned, Michele informed them that the eclipse was over. Frank and Joe stopped shooting. In the dark they stowed their film in a light-tight, refrigerated thermos bag.

“Whew,” Frank said, putting the canister into a cooler on the floor. Behind them, he heard MacLaughlin shuffling around at his station. “That was great, Joe, but I'm glad it's over. I was afraid something might go wrong, and it'd be our fault.”

“Well, relax,” Joe said as they moved out into the light lock, giving each other tired high fives. “Nothing can go wrong now.”

Just as he said the words a scream rose from outside, from the direction of the main tent.

“He's dead!” Michele Ebersol's anguished voice cried out. “You killed him!”

S
TUMBLING OUT
of the light lock into the open air, the Hardys heard Michele scream again. Joe saw her standing in the doorway of the other tent, her hand covering her mouth.

Joe and Frank rushed to her in the growing light. Frank pulled her away from the tent opening as Joe peered inside. There he saw Tim Wheeler kneeling over the prone, blood-soaked body of Dr. Ebersol! A bloody knife was in Wheeler's hand.

Joe didn't wait. Lunging at Wheeler, he hit him in the jaw with a sharp right that flattened the reporter. By the time Joe had made sure Wheeler was unconscious, Frank was kneeling over Ebersol, feeling for a pulse. He shook his head sadly.

As Michele leaned on a tent pole for support, Everett MacLaughlin poked his head in through the tent opening. “Is something the matter?” he asked.

“Call an ambulance!” Joe cried. “Get the police, too! Dr. Ebersol's been stabbed!”

“What?” the stunned assistant gasped, staring at the body of his mentor on the floor. Then he backed out of the tent, saying, “I'll get help.”

Joe stared at Ebersol's lifeless form. It was hard to believe, hard to take it all in. Joe and his brother had been only yards away from a brutal murder. Yet they'd been so absorbed in the celestial event taking place millions of miles away that the slaying had occurred without their knowing it.

“This should have been his moment of triumph,” Michele sobbed.

Minutes later police and ambulance helicopters arrived, and the tent was soon filled with police and paramedics, who confirmed the obvious—Ebersol was dead. Hearing this, Michele burst into a fresh round of sobbing, while MacLaughlin stood staring at the body, obviously in shock.

The police captain, a handsome man of about thirty, with a square, flat face, long black hair, powerful frame, and penetrating gaze, asked Michele what had happened. “When I came in here I found my husband dead,” she answered tearfully.
“Mr. Wheeler was right beside him, holding a knife.”

“Cuff him,” the captain told his assistants.

Wheeler's eyes fluttered open just as cuffs snapped shut around his wrists.

“You are under arrest for the murder of Dr. James Ebersol,” the captain told him. “You have the right to remain silent, the right to counsel, and anything you say can and will be held against you. Understand?”

“What?” Wheeler asked frantically, staring at the police captain. “But I didn't kill him! I came in to interview him, and I found him like that. I picked up the knife, and the next thing I knew, someone socked me. That's the last I remember!” Wheeler's panic-stricken eyes darted from Michele to the Hardys to MacLaughlin and to the police. “You've got to believe me—I didn't kill him!”

The police captain was not buying Wheeler's story. “Looks pretty open and shut to me,” he said. Turning to Joe, he asked, “What's your name, and what are you doing here?”

“I'm Joe Hardy,” he replied. “My brother Frank and I were assisting Dr. Ebersol during the eclipse. We were in the next tent with Mr. MacLaughlin.”

“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!

F
RANK 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.