Shankar Vedantam

This is Hidden Brain.

I'm Shankar Vedanta.

Today's episode begins in a subterranean labyrinth.

It's 2018 and we're below the streets of Washington, D.C.

I've come here in search of clues.

So here we are in Deck 50 in the stacks of the Library of Congress.

I'm opening a door that's marked Door 20.

My guide through the Library of Congress's massive collection is a tall, shaggy man.

His name is Steve Winnick.

He looks a lot like Hagrid from Harry Potter, which seems about right for someone with the title of folklorist.

Steve has already led me through a maze of low ceiling stacks, across a small bridge, and into a tiny elevator where the floor numbers go up as we move down.

Finally, we arrive at our destination.

And in here, we find row upon row of collection boxes on the shelves.

And I'm looking for this collection, which is numbered AFC 1979-008.

Steve pulls from the shelf a cardboard box.

Nobody's really used this collection very much, so it's simply, you know, been there waiting for you, really.

The author of this collection is Richard Riley Shepard, a small-time crook and con man who died in 2009.

I've been tracking Riley Shepard for a few months.

My assumption is that there's nothing of significance in the box.

But I'm about to discover that the story I thought I was reporting is not in fact the full story.