I've heard a lot of stories from my grandfather.

He was a detective for 27 years of his life, and I grew up listening to the tales of

he and his fellow lawmen.

As a child, he obviously amended the stories quite a bit to make them age appropriate, but

as I grew up, more and more of the true stories came out, starting about two years ago.

My grandpa, he got very sick.

He's been on a slow decline ever since, and while it's been one of the hardest things

I've ever had to deal with, his illness acted as the catalyst for a set of stories he'd

never before brought up.

So he kept them filed away deep in the folder he doesn't like to open.

He calls them the impossible ones, but this last one, the one he told me last night, he

said, he said it's the one that still keeps him up some nights, the only things about

every day, he said, he looked over the case files more times than he can remember, than

a full re-examination of it all more times than he can remember, and it never makes any

more sense.

He said he only told me now because he feels in his bones that he doesn't have a lot

of time left.

I recorded him telling me the story, so it follows as my transcription of the case verbatim.

I've only excluded his coughing fits and any off topic remarks made during the telling

of this case.

The case was a murder kidnapping, at least.

That's what it looked like.

...