“Also possible. I’ve got to hang up, Olivia. I need to do some more research here. I think I remember another gossip book here written by Helena Sanders. I’ll call you back if I need you.”
“Just use me and toss me away.”
“Sorry, I think we just got very, very lucky.”
“Is Lynch there now?”
“Yes, he just got in and he’s being Lynch down with the guards at the gates.”
“And you’re excited and in a hurry and I’m keeping you. I want to be there, dammit.” Then she said quickly, “Forget it, call me when you can. But you’d better take care of my dog.”
“I will. And he’ll take care of me.”
“Of course he will. He has more sense than you. Bye.”
She cut the connection.
And Kendra went back to the shelves and rifled quickly through the books to find what else the very gossipy Helena Sanders had to reveal about the Woodwards.
Chapter
17
Kendra spent over an hour going through the books and photographs, but as fascinating as they were, there seemed to be little of relevance to her case. There were many photos of a young James Woodward who spearheaded the construction of the original buildings. Several photos showed him looking at blueprints with a bald, heavyset man with a mustache. The architect, perhaps?
One photo identified him as Alonzo Cortez. Kendra Googled his name and was surprised to see his face on an entire row of photos on the search results page.
There was actually a Wikipedia entry for him and she quickly read it. At the end there were more vintage photos. One of them made her gasp.
“Holy shit,” she said aloud.
She sat there staring down at the book in front of her, breathing hard, her cheeks flushed with excitement. It had to be the answer. Why hadn’t she seen it before? Suddenly a lot of things were making sense. Right down to the sticky oil on the bottom of Cardona’s shoes, she realized.
She picked up the phone. Her hand was shaking as she dialed Lynch. “I’ve got it,” she said the instant he picked up the call. “I was stupid. It was right there before me.”
“What was there before you?” he asked. “Juarez? Talk to me.”
“I’m trying to talk to you. No, not Juarez. You wanted me to forget about Juarez until you called me and maybe it was a good idea. I’m talking about what was in the deed to the property the Woodwards turned over to the foundation to create the school. Not much, just a clause that said a certain area in the property couldn’t be renovated or used by anyone. But it triggered my curiosity.”
“And you decided to pull that trigger.”
“I couldn’t help it. Particularly since it started a family feud between the matriarch of the family and her son, James, that was so intense he was disinherited.” She paused. “And sent him not only out of San Diego, but out of the country to England. Olivia and I agreed he had to have been a very bad boy to receive that degree of punishment, so I decided to check.”
“And you found?”
“I had to access a hell of a lot of computer and library records to get his history, but I found out the most from a gossip writer, Helena Sanders.”
“Not exactly a reputable source?”
“Be quiet. It made sense to me. James was pretty much the scum of the Earth from the moment he was born. He was spoiled rotten because his sister was born blind and his mother tried to give him everything he wanted to make up for the time she had to spend with her. He flunked out of several universities, became an alcoholic by age twenty, and was also addicted to gambling. Gambling takes money and what he couldn’t steal from his family coffers, he earned running drugs across the border.”
“Ahh, the plot thickens.”
“But then he appeared to suddenly have a lot of money, a very steady income.” She drew a deep breath and went for it. “So I was wondering if he’d started to transfer those drugs in another way.”
“Well, their estate was right on the water.”
“That’s what I thought, but that stretch of coastline has always been heavily patrolled. I think he found a better way. When these original buildings were being constructed, he worked with a man named Alonzo Cortez. He had an unusual specialty. Tunnels.”
He gave a low whistle. “Tunnels? As in all the way from Mexico?”