Shankar Vedantam

When Stasha visited, he seemed agitated.

Stasia tried to comfort him.

But in retrospect, she wishes she'd asked a question.

After Riley died, Stasha wanted the world to remember her father correctly.

So she made sure his obituary included not just his real name, but all the pseudonyms he was known to use.

After Riley died, Stasha had his body cremated.

For a long time, she carried his ashes around with her.

She'd scatter a handful here or there, which seemed fitting for a drifter.

Stasha packed up some of his letters, a cookbook he'd written for her, and various other papers.

But his life's work, the encyclopedia he'd been toiling over all those years, he'd left that to someone else.

I'm Shankar Vedant.

I'm Shankar Vedanta.

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

By the time I got to the basement of the Library of Congress, I figured I knew everything I needed to know about Riley Shepard.

He was a crook, a conman, a bad husband, an unreliable father.

So as folklorist Steve Winnick pulls out the Richard Riley Shepard collection from the stacks, I'm not holding my breath.

Nobody's really used this collection very much.

So it's simply, you know, been there waiting for you, really.

Up in his office, Hagrid, a.k.a.

folklorist Steve Winnick, spreads out the papers from the Richard Riley Shepard collection on a table.