“My elbow hurts like hell. I may have cracked a bone.”
Ken shook his head. “You’ve got to tell me how you did that.”
“I’ll tell you later. Right now, we need to tell the police who are watching the house about Luther and Zelko, and get you checked for a concussion. And there’s Nelly. She may be hurt.”
“You just said that we have to tell the police about Zelko? What about him?”
Robin stepped back so Ken could see Luther and the body propped against the tunnel wall.
“Is that…?”
“Victor Zelko. Luther killed him. The first time Zelko escaped from the state hospital, two inmates escaped with him. Luther was one of them. That’s why Zelko came to Black Oaks. Luther must have told him about the place when they were at the hospital. Zelko thought Luther would be able to hide him until everyone stopped looking for him, but Luther had other plans.”
Ken looked confused. “Why would Luther know about Black Oaks?”
“I have an idea, but discussing it can wait.”
Robin helped Ken to his feet. He was dizzy and had to stop once, but he made it up to the room where the secret passage started. They saw Nelly as soon as they stepped into the room. She was unconscious but breathing. Robin handed Ken her gun.
“Watch her while I get the police. And shoot to kill if Luther comes through that door.”
“That won’t be a problem.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
An hour later, Luther was on his way to the county jail. The medical examiner was looking at Victor Zelko’s corpse in the tunnel that led to the woods that the Chameleon had never reached, while the men and women from the Oregon State Crime Lab worked around her.
Ken had a concussion, but he rejected medical advice to go to the hospital. As a former Navy SEAL, this wasn’t his first experience with head trauma, and he decided that he could wait until they were in Portland to see a doctor.
Nelly had a head wound that bled a lot and had to be stitched up, but the doctor thought it would be okay if she recuperated at Black Oaks. Sheila Monroe promised to look after her.
Robin, Ken, and Detectives Morales and Carter were in the dining room watching Sergeant Pine give Emily Raskin her Miranda warnings.
Mrs. Raskin sat with her back to the fireplace, her shoulders folded inward and her cheeks tearstained.
“What will happen to my boy?” she asked.
“He’ll have to go back to the hospital while he waits for his trial, Mrs. Raskin,” Sergeant Pine answered. “He killed a man.”
“He killed that monster to protect me.”
“Can you explain that?” Pine asked.
“Victor Zelko threatened my Luther. He said he would tell the police that I was hiding Luther if Luther didn’t hide him until it was safe to leave. He said the police would put me in jail for harboring a fugitive. Luther killed that monster to protect his mother. Surely that should count for something.”
“I’m certain the judge will take that into account,” Pine assured her. “But, tell me, did Mr. Melville or Mr. Trent know that Luther was a fugitive?”
Mrs. Raskin looked alarmed. “No, no. He would never hurt Mr. Melville or Mr. Trent.”
“How do you know that?”
“He would have told me. He wouldn’t keep something like that from me.”
“To be clear, your son came to Black Oaks as soon as he escaped from the hospital?”
“Yes.”
Mrs. Raskin’s eyes lost focus for a moment as she remembered that night.