For your next date with a serial killer

As far as dates go, I’d say that my last one almost bored me to death.

I wore my favorite yellow sundress with a draping lacy neckline — sexy, but sweet — perfect for my date on a summer’s day in San Francisco. And we all know a summer’s day here was truly a day drenching with fog.

To stay warm, I pulled on my trusty black leather jacket and matching knee high black leather boots before meeting my date for coffee and a stroll through Golden Gate Park.

I’d forgone dating for the past few months after a bad break up (as if there are any other kind, right?).

I sat on a park bench at Spreckels Lake in Golden Gate with my date — a guy in his late twenties. He’d covered the damp bench with a newspaper he’d been carrying under his arm.

The guy professed to be a science teacher, which was obvious in his pedantic one-sided conversation about the remote controlled model boats sailing around the lake.

A bit of wind blew, so I brushed my hair out my face. He took it as a sign. A signal to lean in for a kiss. I jumped back, splashing my coffee all over him. He leapt off the bench, rattling obscenities directed at me.

I was clumsy. I professed this quality on my dating profile where we’d met before agreeing to coffees in the park. I scooted down the bench out of range of his profanities. I stood up and ran away. His slew of cuss words disappearing in the fog.

I darted across the lawn and then over a small road to an island of green grass dotted with rhododendrons covered with pink blossoms. A few eucalyptus trees towered above me. I slowed to an ambling walk.

In front of me, an older man sat on a bench eating a burrito. The bottom part of it wrapped in aluminum foil. A muddy shovel and a red square shaped cooler rested on the ground in front of him. The guy mumbled something with a full mouth, pointing at me. I put my hands up with an exaggerated whatever as I tripped. My black boot stuck in a freshly dug hole.

“Watch out,” he said, standing up and walking over to me.

I tugged my boot out of the mud and with it came a lump of something. Not a rock nor an old bottle. Something small and rectangular.

“Let me see that.” The man squatted down still chewing a bite of his burrito. He put the rest of the burrito on the ground before picking up the muddy object. He wiped the object clean on his work pants. “What do we have here?”

A plastic ziplock bag held a small black notebook.

“You want it?” He said with a frown, picking up his sandwich. “It’s not what I’m looking for. That book there’s some girl’s journal filled with tear stained words.”

I took the bag out of his hand. I was a lover of stories. Maybe there was a mesmerizing tale in the notebook. “What are you looking for?”

“A magic key. There’s a legit story about a writer who buried some magic key worth $10,000 in parks around the USA. Supposedly, there’s one here in Golden Gate. I figured that it’d be in the heart of the dragon — this Rhododendron Island is that place on the map. But no luck.”

“Bummer.” I slipped the muddy bag into my leather jacket’s pocket. “See ya.”

I ran off to a nearby bathroom before the guy changed his mind. Maybe the book held more secrets to this magic key. Sort of like a scavenger hunt.

In the privacy of the bathroom, I took out the baggy, unzipped it, and pulled out the old small black notebook. I opened it, hoping to find the key to the scavenger hunt, but the author wasn’t that kind of person. I flipped through the pages.

Codes. Cryptic words. Drawings.

In the back sleeve area there was a pocket, I looked inside — a blood stained fabric.

I jumped, almost dropping the notebook.

Okay. This notebook was not part of the scavenger hunt. It was some serial killer’s notebook.

With shaky fingers, I sled the notebook back in its plastic bag, sealing it tightly, but letting the air out first.

I let out a long sigh, too.

I tucked the bag into my jacket’s pocket.

I washed my hands three times for good luck.

Afterwards, I held my hands under the air dryer, warming them while wondering what to do next.

“Ain’t got all day.” An older woman said with a raspy voice.

“Whatever,” I said, leaving the bathroom. I had the notebook of a serial killer in my pocket. My hands touched what his or her hands touched.

Death is in that book.

Twenty-five minutes later, I walked through the heavy wooden door of the brick building that housed the neighborhood police department.

My eyes glanced around. Who should I talk to?

I found a woman detective.

“I got a problem,” I said.

She grunted. “Yay, so do most of us these days.”

I reached into my back pocket. She reached for her gun.

“Sorry,” I said, moving my body, so she could see that it was a notebook, not a gun.

I pulled the plastic bag with the small black notebook out of my pocket. “I found this in the park.”

“Which park? Why should I care?”

I handed the bag to her.

She held it by the tip and looked up at me. “Have you touched it?

“Yes.”

“What’s inside? Some teenage girl’s lovestruck poetry?”

Why did everyone think that small black notebooks were only for teenage girls to scribble down their poetry? Seriously. Girls wrote about more than that. Like the environment and clothing and friendships.

“Nope. Can we talk quietly,” I said.

She directed me into a small room. The window overlooked at park and playground where kids played innocently. The detective slipped on a pair of latex gloves, opening the baggy.

A few hours ago, I’d never expect to be sitting in the police station.

Today was supposed to be a good day. A simple day. I’d go a date with what appeared to be a nice guy, but, instead I tripped over a hole, finding what looks like a serial killer’s notebook.

I told my story to the detective. She took the small black notebook out of the plastic bag. Her eyes widened as she flipped through the pages. She looked in the back area, taking out the blood stained fabric.

“Thank you. A lot of people wouldn’t have been so kind. They’d kept it, blogging about it. I appreciate your secrecy.”

I smiled. “Do I get a reward for it?”

The detective laughed. “Yay right. We don’t have that kind of money around here for random finds from possible murderers. If we gave a reward to every person who brought in clues then we’d go broke.”

She took down my number, sending me on my way.

On the following morning, I was at work, reading about the find in the newspaper — the author cited me as an anonymous source.

As luck had it, the notebook might be that of an alleged serial killer who roamed through the Bay Area in the late 1960s.

Why did I have to be anonymous? I thought. Women were always anonymous. It was my story. I was the one who fell in a muddy hole while running from a boring date. I found the book. I should tell the story.

During my lunch break, I wrote up how my bad date turned into a serious find, posting it on Vocal.media.

I checked my post after work.

A reader left a tip for $20,000 with a note — for your next date with a serial killer — I’d suggest a trip to Paris.

Copyright 2021 © Jesi Wright