$62 in cash and a prepaid cell phone that looked 5 years old. The phone was not 5 years old. It was 11 months old, custom-built by the FBI's technical operations division, and was currently recording encrypted audio on a 128 GB solid-state chip embedded beneath the battery housing. But it looked like a phone a man would carry if he didn't have much money. That was the point Darius Vaughn arrived 7 minutes later on foot from the west.
He was 39, shorter than Malcolm by 2 in, broader through the shoulders. He wore a gray pullover hoodie unzipped, dark jeans, and white sneakers. He carried a small leather notebook in his left hand, and a coffee cup from a gas station in his right. They didn't greet each other like old friends. They didn't embrace or shake hands or clap shoulders.
Malcolm was already on the bench. Darius sat down at the opposite end, leaving 2 ft of space between them. He set the coffee cup on the armrest, opened the notebook, and began writing. To anyone walking past, and several people did in the next half hour, they looked like two men who happened to be sitting on the same bench, maybe waiting for a court appearance, maybe waiting for a ride, maybe just sitting. Malcolm unfolded the newspaper.
It was that morning's Wakefield County register, purchased from a vending box at the Chevron on Route 19. He read it front to back, slowly, turning pages with a deliberateness that suggested he had nowhere else to be. Darius wrote in his notebook, small, tight handwriting, numbers mostly. He would look up periodically, not at the courthouse entrance, not at the parking lot, not at the street, but at the side entrance on the building's south face. The one used by courthouse staff and law enforcement.
The one where deputies coming off shift would exit, cross the loading dock, and walk to the employee lot without passing through the main plaza. Every time a deputy exited that door, Darius would glance down at his phone. The gas station coffee positioned to block the motion from view. Check the time and write something in his notebook. Badge number, timestamp, direction of travel, whether they were carrying anything, whether they stopped to talk to anyone in the lot.
He had been doing this at various locations around the Wakefield County Courthouse complex for 11 weeks. At 1:52 p.m., a woman in a Navy blazer and courthouse ID lanyard walked past the bench. She was carrying a stack of file folders and a reusable water bottle. She glanced at Malcolm, then at Darius, then at Malcolm again. She slowed, not quite stopping, but enough to break her stride.
Then she continued through the main entrance. Her name was Bri Odum, senior court clerk, 12 years at the Wakefield County Courthouse. She knew every deputy by first name, every judge's coffee order, every attorney who regularly filed motions in the building. She did not know the two men on the bench. At 1:54 p.m. 2 minutes later, Belle Odum picked up the phone at the front reception desk inside the courthouse lobby and dialed the non-emergency line for the Wakefield County Sheriff's Office.
The call lasted 1 minute and 41 seconds. The dispatcher's log, later entered into evidence as exhibit 14- C, recorded the following. Call received 135422. Caller: Odum Belle. Courthouse staff.
Nature: Two male subjects, black, sitting on exterior bench, South Plaza. No observed criminal activity. Caller states, "Subjects have been present approximately 45 minutes and are quote, "watching the building. " Dispatcher note referred to courthouse detail. Unit assigned, Deputy G.