Chapter 9 #3
“There’s one more thing,” Jack said, turning to Derby.
“The warrant for Dre’s financials came through.
Checking at King George Trust, savings at First National.
Pull everything—deposits, withdrawals, transfers, patterns.
But the real story is going to be in those account numbers from the back of the notebook.
We need to identify who owns those offshore accounts and shell companies. ”
“The domestic accounts I can trace tonight,” Derby said. “The offshore and crypto will take longer. You’ll need to file formal requests through—”
“I am happy to assist with this,” Margot said. “I believe the term you use is Piece of Cake.”
“Legal channels, Margot,” Jack said. “Every bit of it.”
“Of course, love,” she said. “I’d never do anything…questionable.”
“I’m glad to hear,” Jack said. “Can you also model the financial architecture based on what we can legally access. Map the flow. Show me where the money goes after it leaves the fighters’ hands.”
“What about the phone records?” Daniels asked.
Jack’s jaw tightened. “Warrant’s been signed. Judge Calloway pushed it through this morning. But the phone company is dragging their feet. Their compliance department has a forty-eight-hour response window and they seem intent on using every minute of it.”
“Shocking,” Cole said dryly. “A corporation moving slowly when law enforcement needs something.”
“I’ve got a contact at the carrier’s legal office,” Daniels said. “I’ll make a call first thing tomorrow and see if I can light a fire.”
“Do that. Those records could break this open. In the meantime, we work with what we have.”
Jack moved to the board and opened a new column. “T-Bone told us the fights rotate through old tunnels under the docks. A whole network—been there since before the Civil War. Sections set up with rings, lighting, the works.”
“That tracks with what’s on record,” Derby said, already pulling something up on his laptop. “The tunnel network under the King George waterfront is well documented. The historical society has a whole section on it—walking tours, pamphlets, even a chapter in the county register.”
He projected the images on the whiteboard. A historical society website with photographs of arched brick tunnels, their walls dark with age, the floors sandy and uneven.
“The oldest section dates back to around 1720,” Derby said, warming to the subject the way he always did when research gave him something to sink his teeth into.
“Scottish tobacco merchants built them to move hogsheads from the river wharfs to their warehouses without paying the port tariffs the Crown kept raising. The original tunnels were dug by indentured servants and enslaved workers, lined with locally fired brick. Some of the archways still have mason’s marks carved into the keystones—initials and dates.
There’s one section the historical society photographed where someone carved a thistle and the year 1723 into the brick.
The Scottish national emblem. Whoever built it wanted people to know. ”
“That’s over three hundred years old,” Cole said.
“And still standing, apparently.” Derby scrolled through more images.
“The passages were wide enough for a horse and cart—had to be, to move tobacco barrels. During the Civil War, both sides used them. Confederates ran supplies through to avoid Union patrols on the river, and when the Union took the area, they used the same tunnels for their own supply lines. There are accounts in the county register of a Confederate spy ring that operated out of a tunnel entrance beneath what’s now the harbormaster’s building.
“After the war, the tunnels were mostly forgotten,” he continued.
“Until Prohibition. A local rum runner named Cecil ‘Two Fingers’ Pratt—and yes, that was apparently his real nickname—supposedly expanded the network by another half mile, connecting two previously separate sections so he could move whiskey from the river to a speakeasy that operated under a haberdashery on Commerce Street. The county sheriff at the time was reportedly a regular customer.”
“Some things never change,” Cole said, grinning.
“There’s more.” Derby’s expression shifted, the academic enthusiasm giving way to something grimmer.
“There are also records of illegal prize fights in the tunnels going back to the 1920s. Bare-knuckle boxing, mostly dock workers and sailors. A man died in one in 1927—a laborer named Samuel Oates. Beat to death in a tunnel fight beneath the old Merchant’s Row warehouses.
The case was never solved because nobody would admit the fights existed.
The coroner at the time ruled it an accidental fall. ”
The room was quiet for a moment. A man beaten to death in an underground fight, the whole thing swept under the rug by people who didn’t want to answer questions. Nearly a hundred years ago, in the same tunnels, the same story.
“So this isn’t new,” Jack said.
“Not even close. But nobody’s ever mapped the full extent of the network.
The county commissioned a survey in 1987, but it was never completed—funding got cut.
” Derby shrugged. “Some of the dock district property owners have mentioned basement access to tunnel sections in their building permits over the years. Locals talk about it. It’s one of those things everyone kind of knows about but nobody’s ever documented comprehensively. ”
“Until now,” Jack said, looking at the twelve red dots glowing on the satellite map. “Dre mapped it for us.”
“If the lab results on the foot residue come back matching what you’d expect from Colonial-era brick construction,” I said, “That puts Dre underground in those tunnels during his captivity. Combined with T-Bone’s testimony and the coordinates in the notebook, that’s probable cause for a search.”
“Derby, start pulling every building permit, property transfer, and engineering assessment in the dock district going back twenty years,” Jack said.
“If someone’s been accessing and reinforcing those tunnels, they needed equipment, materials, and a way in.
That means a surface property with basement access to the network. ”
“And cross-reference property ownership with anyone connected to this case,” I added. “If our unknown person at the top owns or leases a building above the tunnels, that’s our thread.”
Jack nodded and turned back to the board. In the center of the web, Dre’s photo. Connected to it were the pictures of Vic Caruso, the fighters, Tiana, Loretta, Danny King. And floating at the top, unconnected, was an open box with a question mark.
“That’s our target,” Jack said. “Everything flows up to that box. Vic manages the operation day-to-day, but someone above him is funding it, setting the stakes, and making the decisions. Someone with enough money for offshore accounts and shell companies in Delaware and the Caymans. Someone who can run an operation worth millions a year without anyone asking questions.”
“And someone who ordered the death of a twenty-four-year-old kid because he was keeping records,” Cole said.
That settled over the room like a weight. By the fire, Lily had stopped reading. Her book was still open in her lap, but her eyes were on Cole, as if she were calculating the risk even though he was already neck deep.
We worked for another hour after that, filling in gaps, assigning tasks, building the web.
Derby dove into the dock district property records while Daniels ran criminal backgrounds through every database she had access to.
Doug and Margot processed the financial records from Dre’s known accounts, flagging cash deposits between three and eight hundred dollars at irregular intervals—just enough to avoid triggering currency transaction reports, consistent with the fight payouts in the notebook.
The bulk of his earnings had gone behind the wall in his closet.
Smart kid. He was banking just enough to look legitimate while keeping the real money off the books.
“I have preliminary results on the domestic account numbers from the notebook,” Margot announced.
“Two of the accounts are registered to Iron House LLC, which lists Victor Caruso as sole proprietor. The Delaware account is held by a shell company called Monarch Holdings Group. The Nevada account belongs to another entity called Regent Capital Partners. Both were incorporated within the last five years. Both list registered agents rather than individual owners.”
“So someone’s hiding behind layers,” Jack said.
“At least two layers,” Margot confirmed. “Tracing the beneficial ownership will require subpoenas to the registered agents. However, I can cross-reference the incorporation dates and registered agent addresses with other business filings in those states to identify common patterns.”
“Do it.”
Derby looked up from his laptop. “First round of backgrounds are coming in. Vic Caruso has a sheet—assault charges from the nineties, all in New York. Two convictions, both pled down. Did eighteen months at Rikers on the second one. Nothing since he moved to Virginia twelve years ago.”
“What brought him to King George?” Jack asked.
“That’s the interesting part. His known associates in New York include two members of the Moretti family’s outer circle. Low-level bookmaking, loan sharking. Nothing that made him a player, but enough to put him in the orbit.”
“So Vic’s got organized crime connections going back decades,” I said. “And he brings that expertise to Virginia and sets up a boxing gym.”
“Classic front,” Cole said. “Clean business on top, dirty money underneath.”
“T-Bone’s clean,” Derby continued. “Honorable discharge, no record. Marco Reyes has a misdemeanor DUI from six years ago, nothing else. Darnell Harris is clean. Tiana Williams is clean. Danny King is clean—and I mean squeaky. Not even a parking ticket.”
“What about the others?” Jack asked.