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ndigmy son and i built a free library in our front yard. someone left a book in it.
My neighborhood isn't your cliche movie neighborhood. The lawns aren't perfect, kids don't leave bikes lying around on the sidewalks, and neighbors don't smile and wave as you drive by. We all kind of mind our own business, for the most part. To be honest, I don't think I've ever had a conversation with any one of my neighbors. But to my defense, my neighborhood isn't built like a traditional neighborhood.
I live in Castro Valley. Emphasis on the "valley." The entire town is built on hills. The block I live on resembles more of a roller coaster than a street. I wish I could say you get used to living like this, but you don't. My house is smack in the middle of a hill; and after a decade of living here, I've discovered that I'm a "house half uphill" kind of guy.
My ten-year-old son, Cooper, loves it here. There's a single-screen movie theater down the street, next door to that is a comic book shop, across the street is an ice cream parlor, and a few blocks over is Golfland. I'm convinced that Castro Valley was designed by a child.
Cooper had overheard my wife and I talking about how unfriendly our neighborhood felt and he had an idea of how we could do our part in fixing it. When he visits my mother-in-law, they like to go on walks. I guess a neighbor of hers has one of those Little Free Library things in their front yard. The mailbox looking thing that the owner fills with books, and anyone walking by is encouraged to trade one of their own books for one in the library. Cooper said we could fill it with all of our favorite books, so our neighbors could get to know us a little better.
He had spring break coming up, and I had vacation days lying around, so I planned on taking the week off to spend with him. I figured building the library was a great opportunity for a father-son project.
The sun was setting, and admittedly, it may have taken a little longer than anticipated to build, but there it was nonetheless. We took a step back and admired the little library that was now standing firmly in our yard. I handed him a paintbrush and told him that all the library was missing was a name. He gave it some thought, then started with the brush. When he moved away, I could see that he painted "Greenridge Road Library" in big green letters. Fittingly named after the street we live on.
The next day, I peeled myself off of my mattress and dragged my feet into the kitchen. Cooper was sitting on the couch, fully dressed, shoes tied, hair brushed, ready to go. I have weird attachments to all of Cooper's stuff. He's our only child, so every little thing of his is tethered to precious memories. I couldn't just let him put his books, which my wife and I read to him over the years, outside for strangers to take. So, I told him we would go to the bookstore to get new books to use.
Before we left, Cooper ran over to check our Greenridge Road Library. I hurried to catch up to him when I saw him jumping up and down with excitement. He screamed "Dad! Dad! Look!" And to my surprise, there was already a book sitting inside of the little library, patiently waiting for us to adopt it.
It was a Penguin Random House children's book titled: "How to Swim and Dive." It was a cute, little, vintage, book about learning how to swim. And even though it was covered in a clear, but yellowing, protective jacket; the book was extremely weathered. It looked decades old. The style of the cover art and pictures throughout the pages made me think it may be midcentury era. The once bright colored spine was cracking and had a slight tear through the "V" in the book name, giving it the new title: "How to Swim and Die." That got a guilty chuckle out of me.
The book jacket proudly wore a sticker for the Hayward Public Library. Hayward is Castro Valley's sister city, so it wasn't too surprising that a book from there ended up minutes away in our front yard. What was surprising was the fully intact checkout card still in the sleeve on the inside. The only name and date on the card were: Roger Davis on April 3rd, 1964.
Out of curiosity, I Googled the name Roger Davis. Facebook and LinkedIn profiles popped up, all of smiling young men that were half of the age my Roger Davis would be today. I tried to narrow the search down by adding "California," but no luck. I'm old enough to remember life before the internet, So I went to scavenge for The Yellow Pages book that I thought we still had somewhere.
If I had given it any real thought, I would have remembered that we got rid of our last one about five spring cleanings ago. I figured this would be the perfect time to introduce my son to the public library system. I told Cooper that we could go to the Hayward Library; since that was where the book was originally from. And we could maybe even see if they could look up any information on Roger Davis.
Although he was incredibly eager to get inside and work the case, Cooper still held the library door open for the fragile moving old man walking behind us. The librarian glared at me over the top of her thick lenses, with an "Are you serious?" look on her face. She sighed and lectured me on why she couldn't share the private information of their members, even if they had it. Which they didn’t. Those records were long gone. Also long gone: the Yellow Pages, apparently. I don’t know why I assumed the library would have them, but they didn’t. So, I ordered one on my phone to be delivered to my house and we left. On the way out, Cooper whispered to me that he'd be a nicer librarian for The Greenridge Road Library.
The following day was a hotter than usual spring day. My wife and I decided that a family day at the community pool sounded good. We didn't have a pool in our backyard, and no one else we knew did, either. And as a result, Cooper wasn't the best swimmer. But lucky for him, we just so happened to have come into the custody of a how-to swim book.We ot to the pool and I had the highly important job of securing pool chairs for my family. It took me a little while to collect enough chairs. It would have taken longer, if not for the elderly gentleman who graciously volunteered his chair to me. His attempt at hiding from the sun under a bucket hat and sunglasses was failing, so he was leaving anyway. He was amused that I was carrying around such a vintage book. On his way out, he gave the faintest smile and said that he had the same book when he was younger.
I started thumbing through the pages to see if there were any good pointers that I could relay to Cooper, and I must not have looked hard enough the first time we found the book because I now noticed handwritten numbers on the bottom corner of every page. Two numbers on each page and they didn't correspond to the page number at all. The first page had "37." The next one had "66," the third page had "46," and so on; fifteen numbers in total. There was no obvious reason or pattern to the order, but they were neatly written and obviously intentional.
I'm not too proud to admit that my wife is smarter than I am, but I still felt like a complete idiot when it only took her a millisecond to glance at the pages and say "Oh, neat! It's coordinates." Of course. Why wasn't that my first guess? Cooper asked what coordinates were and when I explained them to him, he got really excited at the thought of it being buried treasure. That excitement soured to disappointment when I shot down his proposal to go chase the coordinates that exact minute. I told him we could go the following day, and then hit the biggest cannonball he's ever seen as a distraction.
Cooper shook me until I fully woke up. He wouldn't stop until I had Google Maps open. He watched with anticipation as I typed in each number of the coordinates. The pin dropped into a cluster of trees, a little ways off of the Ward Creek walking trail in the Hayward hills. To his delight, it was only a ten-minute drive away.
Cooper was so excited walking that trail. He's not an introvert, but he rarely talks to strangers. That day, he was waving and saying hi to everyone we crossed paths with. The family walking their dog got a hey from Cooper. He said "Have a nice day" to the pale-haired, old man, that was catching his breath on a bench. One jogger even got a high-five from Cooper.
I couldn't help but feel like an irresponsible parent when we reached the point of the walkway that we had to diverge off of to get to the coordinates. It didn't seem like the safest trek for a ten-year-old to make, but I couldn't stomach telling him that he couldn't see this through. As we approached the coordinates, I could make out glimpses of unnatural colors in the distance. At first, I thought it was a group of people, and slid Cooper behind me as we walked up.
Standing directly on top of the coordinates, we were dead center to a group of trees. On each tree, was a t-shirt nailed to it; creating a surrounding audience. The shirts were small, like they'd fit Cooper. Six in total. Vintage, ringer style shirts with red trim and matching red font that read "Hayward Plunge." On the inside tags, I could make out handwritten names: John, Henry, Susie, Wayne, Donna, and Jackie.
I had no idea what Hayward Plunge meant or who these names belonged to, but that didn't really matter, I was full on panicking. My fight or flight was in high gear. This wasn't the innocent treasure hunt we thought it would be. This was wrong, very wrong. I was wrong to bring my son here. I played enough high school football to know what dried blood stains looked like on fabric.
I didn't want to let Cooper see the concern on my face, and I knew he was on the verge of asking if we could start digging for the treasure that he thought was beneath us. I needed to get him out of there as soon as possible. I tried to drum up fake enthusiasm and say we needed to celebrate us making it to the finish line. I told him we deserved ice cream for our hard work. He wasn't ready to leave until I told him he could get as many scoops and toppings as he wanted. Luckily, that was enough to get him out of there.
I thought a night of sleep would help distance me from the kid's shirts on the trees, but it didn't. It was on my mind as I got out of bed, and as I made my coffee, and was very prominently on my mind as I stood at the front room window watching my own child play in the front yard. I watched him look under rocks for bugs, and lay in the grass, and eventually check The Greenridge Road Library. Then, I watched him run into the house holding a stack of books.
He proudly laid them out on display. My stomach turned as I realized they were more vintage books. Artwork and color palettes from an era long gone. Titles like "The Clumsy Cowboy" and "Hurry Up, Slowpoke." I peeked over his shoulder as he grabbed one and skimmed through the pages. On the inside cover, read the generic "this book belongs to:" with Wayne scribbled under it.
For the last twenty-four hours, six names have been playing on a loop in my head. Wayne was one of them. I grabbed a different book and opened it: Susie. I didn't need to grab anymore, I already knew what I'd find. But I did anyway. One inside cover after the other; John, then Jackie, then Henry, and finally Donna.
I was ready to tear the Greenridge Road Library out of the ground at this point. I scoured through my ring notifications. Ever since we installed the library, it seemed like all of Castro Valley stops by and looks through it. I had hundreds of clips of people in front of it. It could have been any one of them. I dissected each clip to see if I could find who left the books. The problem was that the library was positioned in a way that the camera couldn't see if someone was taking or placing books. To be honest, this made me incredibly skeptical of my neighbors. Was it the dad walking his kids? The moms pushing strollers? The dog walker group? The mailman?
I gave up the hunt and set my phone on my lap as the clips continued playing. At this point, I was fully losing it. I don't know why this upset me as much as it did. It's not like someone is putting inappropriate material in the library. No one was committing crimes. It was just weird and creepy. I thought maybe it was an elaborate prank. I was willing to accept it as a prank and move on.
When I picked up my phone, it was halfway through a clip. There was no one in front of the Greenridge Road Library, or my house. So, I was confused as to why this was recorded. Then in the corner of the frame, I noticed an old man, standing across the street, and looking at the library. He remained still for an uncomfortable amount of time before turning and leaving. The video was super grainy and he was so far away that I couldn't make out any details of his face. It felt strange, though. This was enough to make me want to solve all of this, simply so I could feel like my family was safe in our home.
I tried to take inventory of all the information I had. The books, the names, the year on the library card, the coordinates, and the blood stained shirts on the trees. Shirts that had text on them. "Hayward Plunge." I typed the phrase into a search bar. The first suggestion was a link to the Hayward Parks and Rec website. To the right of that was a small collage consisting of a map, street view, and picture of the inside of a building.
Built in 1936, the Hayward Plunge is an indoor swimming facility. It's essentially one big pool inside of a hangar-like structure. Additionally, after seeing the map of where the plunge was located, I realized the trail that I was just on the other day, ran directly behind the building. Finally, things were starting to click.
I was waiting at the front desk as the teenager working it went off to get the manager. I felt a little foolish, but at this point, there was no way I could leave this thread loose. The manager came walking up and asked how they could help me. I took a deep breath and made the jump. I explained how I came into possession of Roger Davis's swim instruction book, how it led me to the trail, and to the displayed Hayward Plunge shirts. Which all brought me there to speak with her.
I don't know what I was expecting. It was a lot of random information to unload on an unsuspecting stranger. I for sure wasn't expecting the manager's face to drop like it did. She paused for a second, then asked "Could we talk in my office?"
I took a seat at the desk across from her. She didn't hesitate. She said, "Back in the day there was a small beginner swimming class that had some students who went missing." That was chilling enough, but she continued. "This was in the 60's, so they didn't have camera surveillance or anything like that. The Hayward P.D't have any evidence of who took the kids or where the kids went." I didn't know what to say. I didn't need to say anything, because she wasn't done. This time needing a little more strength, eventually pushing out, "It's like, an urban legend here, so take it with a grain of salt; but people say their swim instructor went crazy and killed the kids." I could see it in her eyes before her words came out. I knew what was coming next. She looked me dead in the eye and said, "The instructor, his name.... was Roger."
Everything was still spinning when I strapped my seatbelt in and it didn’t stop during the drive home. What did I invite to my home? What danger did I put my son in? Who or where was Roger Davis? That last question would be answered a lot quicker than I anticipated.
Waiting for me at our front door, was the gigantic waste of paper that is, the Yellow Pages. It made a huge thud on my kitchen table when I set it down to grab a beer. I could feel it staring at me the whole time. Begging me to open it. I knew I had to, but I really didn't want to. I was already fed up with this whole situation. It had escalated to points that I was not prepared for. I looked back at the yellow pages. It was just sitting there. I took a swig of beer and said fuck it.
I found the residents section and made my way to the names under D. It didn’t take long to put my finger over the first Davis. It was a page over and near the bottom, but there he was. Roger M. Davis. I should have left it there. Cool, I found him. Mission accomplished. I should have taken the win and moved on with my life. But I just couldn't help myself. I needed to know.
I panned to the right of his name, where his address was. I felt my beer rising in my throat as I did. Next to his name and under "current address" was, Green Ridge Road.
The scariest house isn't always the one that looks like it. It's not always the dilapidated house with the dead lawn and shady looking tenets who won't make eye contact with you. Sometimes it's the house that's painted in the friendliest shade of soft yellow. The one that has an American flag perfectly flying from the porch. The one with the old man that comes out like clockwork to hand water his lawn. The house that you have no problem sending your kid to their front door for candy on Halloween. What is it they say about book covers?
Roger Davis was arrested for the murders of John and Jackie Miller, ages 9 and 8. Donna Zimmerman, age 7. Wayne Jackson, age 8. Susie Lee, age 8. Henry Parker, age 6. Almost sixty years after he committed the crimes. He was 86 at the time of his arrest.
I gave the police everything I had. They used fingerprints from Henry Parker's copy of "The Rise and Fall of Ben Gizzard," that was left in our library, to match with some found on belongings of his that his diligent mother kept well preserved after all these years. Roger's prints were also a match on all of the kid's books, as well as the "How to Swim and Dive" manual we found in our little library.
Cadaver dogs hit on the area of the coordinates and they were able to recover the remains of all the children. My stomach still fills with shame and dread because I willingly brought my son to the burial site. I let him stand feet above the bones of murdered children as we played around on a pretend scavenger hunt.
We were in the middle of dinner weeks later when I heard the sirens. Flashing lights followed, reflecting off our walls. Our street doesn't get police activity very often, if at all. I knew who they were coming for.
It took me a couple of minutes to walk down my street and get to the house surrounded by the crime scene tape. As I approached, two officers walked out a slightly hunched, white-haired man, in handcuffs. He looked frail and confused, and unremarkable from any other elderly person in the community. He wasn't someone who looked like they would be getting arrested. The policemen closed the squad door behind him, regardless.
I observed him as he sat in the backseat of the cop car. He wasn't moving at all and he was seemingly focused on the nothingness in front of him. He stayed like this for an uncomfortable amount of time.
An officer told me he couldn't share any information on the case, not knowing that I was the one who revived the six cold cases with my findings. There wasn't much more for me to see, and it felt like it was time for me to head back home.
I looked one more time at Roger. I just wanted to burn into my eyes what evil could look like, so I never put my son in danger ever again. After a few seconds, the vile old man slowly started to turn his whole body towards the window. Towards me.
His face was blank and devoid of any humanity. He pointed his vacant and dark eyes at me. I could see the faintest bit of recognition from him once he saw me. I didn't want to look away. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing fear on someone one last time. Even if I was terrified inside.
My last glimpse of him, before the car hauled him away, was the slow movement of his mouth forming the slightest, perverted, grin. He was enjoying this. He knew that he'd die soon, and he'd essentially got away with his crimes. I don't think that's what made him smile in that moment, though.
He knew that I'd see him again. Every time I watched someone leave a book in the Green Ridge Road Library for Cooper, or when Cooper's baseball coach pulls him aside to give him tips on his swing, or when I had parent-teacher conferences and met Cooper's teachers. He knew that I'd see him in every one of those people that I was trusting to be around my son.
He knew that's how he would live on.
#entertainment d.
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My neighborhood isn't your cliche movie neighborhood. The lawns aren't perfect, kids don't leave bikes lying around on the sidewalks, and neighbors don't smile and wave as you drive by. We all kind of mind our own business, for the most part. To be honest, I don't think I've ever had a conversation with any one of my neighbors. But to my defense, my neighborhood isn't built like a traditional neighborhood.
I live in Castro Valley. Emphasis on the "valley." The entire town is built on hills. The block I live on resembles more of a roller coaster than a street. I wish I could say you get used to living like this, but you don't. My house is smack in the middle of a hill; and after a decade of living here, I've discovered that I'm a "house half uphill" kind of guy.
My ten-year-old son, Cooper, loves it here. There's a single-screen movie theater down the street, next door to that is a comic book shop, across the street is an ice cream parlor, and a few blocks over is Golfland. I'm convinced that Castro Valley was designed by a child.
Cooper had overheard my wife and I talking about how unfriendly our neighborhood felt and he had an idea of how we could do our part in fixing it. When he visits my mother-in-law, they like to go on walks. I guess a neighbor of hers has one of those Little Free Library things in their front yard. The mailbox looking thing that the owner fills with books, and anyone walking by is encouraged to trade one of their own books for one in the library. Cooper said we could fill it with all of our favorite books, so our neighbors could get to know us a little better.
He had spring break coming up, and I had vacation days lying around, so I planned on taking the week off to spend with him. I figured building the library was a great opportunity for a father-son project.
The sun was setting, and admittedly, it may have taken a little longer than anticipated to build, but there it was nonetheless. We took a step back and admired the little library that was now standing firmly in our yard. I handed him a paintbrush and told him that all the library was missing was a name. He gave it some thought, then started with the brush. When he moved away, I could see that he painted "Greenridge Road Library" in big green letters. Fittingly named after the street we live on.
The next day, I peeled myself off of my mattress and dragged my feet into the kitchen. Cooper was sitting on the couch, fully dressed, shoes tied, hair brushed, ready to go. I have weird attachments to all of Cooper's stuff. He's our only child, so every little thing of his is tethered to precious memories. I couldn't just let him put his books, which my wife and I read to him over the years, outside for strangers to take. So, I told him we would go to the bookstore to get new books to use.
Before we left, Cooper ran over to check our Greenridge Road Library. I hurried to catch up to him when I saw him jumping up and down with excitement. He screamed "Dad! Dad! Look!" And to my surprise, there was already a book sitting inside of the little library, patiently waiting for us to adopt it.
It was a Penguin Random House children's book titled: "How to Swim and Dive." It was a cute, little, vintage, book about learning how to swim. And even though it was covered in a clear, but yellowing, protective jacket; the book was extremely weathered. It looked decades old. The style of the cover art and pictures throughout the pages made me think it may be midcentury era. The once bright colored spine was cracking and had a slight tear through the "V" in the book name, giving it the new title: "How to Swim and Die." That got a guilty chuckle out of me.
The book jacket proudly wore a sticker for the Hayward Public Library. Hayward is Castro Valley's sister city, so it wasn't too surprising that a book from there ended up minutes away in our front yard. What was surprising was the fully intact checkout card still in the sleeve on the inside. The only name and date on the card were: Roger Davis on April 3rd, 1964.
Out of curiosity, I Googled the name Roger Davis. Facebook and LinkedIn profiles popped up, all of smiling young men that were half of the age my Roger Davis would be today. I tried to narrow the search down by adding "California," but no luck. I'm old enough to remember life before the internet, So I went to scavenge for The Yellow Pages book that I thought we still had somewhere.
If I had given it any real thought, I would have remembered that we got rid of our last one about five spring cleanings ago. I figured this would be the perfect time to introduce my son to the public library system. I told Cooper that we could go to the Hayward Library; since that was where the book was originally from. And we could maybe even see if they could look up any information on Roger Davis.
Although he was incredibly eager to get inside and work the case, Cooper still held the library door open for the fragile moving old man walking behind us. The librarian glared at me over the top of her thick lenses, with an "Are you serious?" look on her face. She sighed and lectured me on why she couldn't share the private information of their members, even if they had it. Which they didn’t. Those records were long gone. Also long gone: the Yellow Pages, apparently. I don’t know why I assumed the library would have them, but they didn’t. So, I ordered one on my phone to be delivered to my house and we left. On the way out, Cooper whispered to me that he'd be a nicer librarian for The Greenridge Road Library.
The following day was a hotter than usual spring day. My wife and I decided that a family day at the community pool sounded good. We didn't have a pool in our backyard, and no one else we knew did, either. And as a result, Cooper wasn't the best swimmer. But lucky for him, we just so happened to have come into the custody of a how-to swim book.We ot to the pool and I had the highly important job of securing pool chairs for my family. It took me a little while to collect enough chairs. It would have taken longer, if not for the elderly gentleman who graciously volunteered his chair to me. His attempt at hiding from the sun under a bucket hat and sunglasses was failing, so he was leaving anyway. He was amused that I was carrying around such a vintage book. On his way out, he gave the faintest smile and said that he had the same book when he was younger.
I started thumbing through the pages to see if there were any good pointers that I could relay to Cooper, and I must not have looked hard enough the first time we found the book because I now noticed handwritten numbers on the bottom corner of every page. Two numbers on each page and they didn't correspond to the page number at all. The first page had "37." The next one had "66," the third page had "46," and so on; fifteen numbers in total. There was no obvious reason or pattern to the order, but they were neatly written and obviously intentional.
I'm not too proud to admit that my wife is smarter than I am, but I still felt like a complete idiot when it only took her a millisecond to glance at the pages and say "Oh, neat! It's coordinates." Of course. Why wasn't that my first guess? Cooper asked what coordinates were and when I explained them to him, he got really excited at the thought of it being buried treasure. That excitement soured to disappointment when I shot down his proposal to go chase the coordinates that exact minute. I told him we could go the following day, and then hit the biggest cannonball he's ever seen as a distraction.
Cooper shook me until I fully woke up. He wouldn't stop until I had Google Maps open. He watched with anticipation as I typed in each number of the coordinates. The pin dropped into a cluster of trees, a little ways off of the Ward Creek walking trail in the Hayward hills. To his delight, it was only a ten-minute drive away.
Cooper was so excited walking that trail. He's not an introvert, but he rarely talks to strangers. That day, he was waving and saying hi to everyone we crossed paths with. The family walking their dog got a hey from Cooper. He said "Have a nice day" to the pale-haired, old man, that was catching his breath on a bench. One jogger even got a high-five from Cooper.
I couldn't help but feel like an irresponsible parent when we reached the point of the walkway that we had to diverge off of to get to the coordinates. It didn't seem like the safest trek for a ten-year-old to make, but I couldn't stomach telling him that he couldn't see this through. As we approached the coordinates, I could make out glimpses of unnatural colors in the distance. At first, I thought it was a group of people, and slid Cooper behind me as we walked up.
Standing directly on top of the coordinates, we were dead center to a group of trees. On each tree, was a t-shirt nailed to it; creating a surrounding audience. The shirts were small, like they'd fit Cooper. Six in total. Vintage, ringer style shirts with red trim and matching red font that read "Hayward Plunge." On the inside tags, I could make out handwritten names: John, Henry, Susie, Wayne, Donna, and Jackie.
I had no idea what Hayward Plunge meant or who these names belonged to, but that didn't really matter, I was full on panicking. My fight or flight was in high gear. This wasn't the innocent treasure hunt we thought it would be. This was wrong, very wrong. I was wrong to bring my son here. I played enough high school football to know what dried blood stains looked like on fabric.
I didn't want to let Cooper see the concern on my face, and I knew he was on the verge of asking if we could start digging for the treasure that he thought was beneath us. I needed to get him out of there as soon as possible. I tried to drum up fake enthusiasm and say we needed to celebrate us making it to the finish line. I told him we deserved ice cream for our hard work. He wasn't ready to leave until I told him he could get as many scoops and toppings as he wanted. Luckily, that was enough to get him out of there.
I thought a night of sleep would help distance me from the kid's shirts on the trees, but it didn't. It was on my mind as I got out of bed, and as I made my coffee, and was very prominently on my mind as I stood at the front room window watching my own child play in the front yard. I watched him look under rocks for bugs, and lay in the grass, and eventually check The Greenridge Road Library. Then, I watched him run into the house holding a stack of books.
He proudly laid them out on display. My stomach turned as I realized they were more vintage books. Artwork and color palettes from an era long gone. Titles like "The Clumsy Cowboy" and "Hurry Up, Slowpoke." I peeked over his shoulder as he grabbed one and skimmed through the pages. On the inside cover, read the generic "this book belongs to:" with Wayne scribbled under it.
For the last twenty-four hours, six names have been playing on a loop in my head. Wayne was one of them. I grabbed a different book and opened it: Susie. I didn't need to grab anymore, I already knew what I'd find. But I did anyway. One inside cover after the other; John, then Jackie, then Henry, and finally Donna.
I was ready to tear the Greenridge Road Library out of the ground at this point. I scoured through my ring notifications. Ever since we installed the library, it seemed like all of Castro Valley stops by and looks through it. I had hundreds of clips of people in front of it. It could have been any one of them. I dissected each clip to see if I could find who left the books. The problem was that the library was positioned in a way that the camera couldn't see if someone was taking or placing books. To be honest, this made me incredibly skeptical of my neighbors. Was it the dad walking his kids? The moms pushing strollers? The dog walker group? The mailman?
I gave up the hunt and set my phone on my lap as the clips continued playing. At this point, I was fully losing it. I don't know why this upset me as much as it did. It's not like someone is putting inappropriate material in the library. No one was committing crimes. It was just weird and creepy. I thought maybe it was an elaborate prank. I was willing to accept it as a prank and move on.
When I picked up my phone, it was halfway through a clip. There was no one in front of the Greenridge Road Library, or my house. So, I was confused as to why this was recorded. Then in the corner of the frame, I noticed an old man, standing across the street, and looking at the library. He remained still for an uncomfortable amount of time before turning and leaving. The video was super grainy and he was so far away that I couldn't make out any details of his face. It felt strange, though. This was enough to make me want to solve all of this, simply so I could feel like my family was safe in our home.
I tried to take inventory of all the information I had. The books, the names, the year on the library card, the coordinates, and the blood stained shirts on the trees. Shirts that had text on them. "Hayward Plunge." I typed the phrase into a search bar. The first suggestion was a link to the Hayward Parks and Rec website. To the right of that was a small collage consisting of a map, street view, and picture of the inside of a building.
Built in 1936, the Hayward Plunge is an indoor swimming facility. It's essentially one big pool inside of a hangar-like structure. Additionally, after seeing the map of where the plunge was located, I realized the trail that I was just on the other day, ran directly behind the building. Finally, things were starting to click.
I was waiting at the front desk as the teenager working it went off to get the manager. I felt a little foolish, but at this point, there was no way I could leave this thread loose. The manager came walking up and asked how they could help me. I took a deep breath and made the jump. I explained how I came into possession of Roger Davis's swim instruction book, how it led me to the trail, and to the displayed Hayward Plunge shirts. Which all brought me there to speak with her.
I don't know what I was expecting. It was a lot of random information to unload on an unsuspecting stranger. I for sure wasn't expecting the manager's face to drop like it did. She paused for a second, then asked "Could we talk in my office?"
I took a seat at the desk across from her. She didn't hesitate. She said, "Back in the day there was a small beginner swimming class that had some students who went missing." That was chilling enough, but she continued. "This was in the 60's, so they didn't have camera surveillance or anything like that. The Hayward P.D't have any evidence of who took the kids or where the kids went." I didn't know what to say. I didn't need to say anything, because she wasn't done. This time needing a little more strength, eventually pushing out, "It's like, an urban legend here, so take it with a grain of salt; but people say their swim instructor went crazy and killed the kids." I could see it in her eyes before her words came out. I knew what was coming next. She looked me dead in the eye and said, "The instructor, his name.... was Roger."
Everything was still spinning when I strapped my seatbelt in and it didn’t stop during the drive home. What did I invite to my home? What danger did I put my son in? Who or where was Roger Davis? That last question would be answered a lot quicker than I anticipated.
Waiting for me at our front door, was the gigantic waste of paper that is, the Yellow Pages. It made a huge thud on my kitchen table when I set it down to grab a beer. I could feel it staring at me the whole time. Begging me to open it. I knew I had to, but I really didn't want to. I was already fed up with this whole situation. It had escalated to points that I was not prepared for. I looked back at the yellow pages. It was just sitting there. I took a swig of beer and said fuck it.
I found the residents section and made my way to the names under D. It didn’t take long to put my finger over the first Davis. It was a page over and near the bottom, but there he was. Roger M. Davis. I should have left it there. Cool, I found him. Mission accomplished. I should have taken the win and moved on with my life. But I just couldn't help myself. I needed to know.
I panned to the right of his name, where his address was. I felt my beer rising in my throat as I did. Next to his name and under "current address" was, Green Ridge Road.
The scariest house isn't always the one that looks like it. It's not always the dilapidated house with the dead lawn and shady looking tenets who won't make eye contact with you. Sometimes it's the house that's painted in the friendliest shade of soft yellow. The one that has an American flag perfectly flying from the porch. The one with the old man that comes out like clockwork to hand water his lawn. The house that you have no problem sending your kid to their front door for candy on Halloween. What is it they say about book covers?
Roger Davis was arrested for the murders of John and Jackie Miller, ages 9 and 8. Donna Zimmerman, age 7. Wayne Jackson, age 8. Susie Lee, age 8. Henry Parker, age 6. Almost sixty years after he committed the crimes. He was 86 at the time of his arrest.
I gave the police everything I had. They used fingerprints from Henry Parker's copy of "The Rise and Fall of Ben Gizzard," that was left in our library, to match with some found on belongings of his that his diligent mother kept well preserved after all these years. Roger's prints were also a match on all of the kid's books, as well as the "How to Swim and Dive" manual we found in our little library.
Cadaver dogs hit on the area of the coordinates and they were able to recover the remains of all the children. My stomach still fills with shame and dread because I willingly brought my son to the burial site. I let him stand feet above the bones of murdered children as we played around on a pretend scavenger hunt.
We were in the middle of dinner weeks later when I heard the sirens. Flashing lights followed, reflecting off our walls. Our street doesn't get police activity very often, if at all. I knew who they were coming for.
It took me a couple of minutes to walk down my street and get to the house surrounded by the crime scene tape. As I approached, two officers walked out a slightly hunched, white-haired man, in handcuffs. He looked frail and confused, and unremarkable from any other elderly person in the community. He wasn't someone who looked like they would be getting arrested. The policemen closed the squad door behind him, regardless.
I observed him as he sat in the backseat of the cop car. He wasn't moving at all and he was seemingly focused on the nothingness in front of him. He stayed like this for an uncomfortable amount of time.
An officer told me he couldn't share any information on the case, not knowing that I was the one who revived the six cold cases with my findings. There wasn't much more for me to see, and it felt like it was time for me to head back home.
I looked one more time at Roger. I just wanted to burn into my eyes what evil could look like, so I never put my son in danger ever again. After a few seconds, the vile old man slowly started to turn his whole body towards the window. Towards me.
His face was blank and devoid of any humanity. He pointed his vacant and dark eyes at me. I could see the faintest bit of recognition from him once he saw me. I didn't want to look away. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing fear on someone one last time. Even if I was terrified inside.
My last glimpse of him, before the car hauled him away, was the slow movement of his mouth forming the slightest, perverted, grin. He was enjoying this. He knew that he'd die soon, and he'd essentially got away with his crimes. I don't think that's what made him smile in that moment, though.
He knew that I'd see him again. Every time I watched someone leave a book in the Green Ridge Road Library for Cooper, or when Cooper's baseball coach pulls him aside to give him tips on his swing, or when I had parent-teacher conferences and met Cooper's teachers. He knew that I'd see him in every one of those people that I was trusting to be around my son.
He knew that's how he would live on.
#entertainment d.
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