This is The Moth Radio Hour.

I'm Chloe Salmon, one of the directors at The Moth.

I've always loved mystery stories, the clues, the deductions, the big reveals, and I've always loved mystery stories.

The clues, the deductions, the big reveals, and I've always secretly dreamed of being a detective.

When I was seven, my dad came home from work one day with a book called The Magic Storybook that he had made out of a manila folder and computer paper.

All of the pages inside were blank.

My dad said that the book was magic and that only he could read the stories,

which he would do for me and my little brother when we asked.

But the mystery of the book consumed me.

It couldn't be real magic, right?

I interrogated my dad for weeks before he finally

broke and admitted that he was making the stories up as he went along. Detective Chloe cracked

the case, and the book felt all the more magical to me because of it. Twenty-three years later,

it's still on my bookshelf.

In this hour, stories of mysteries life presents us and the ways we meet them.

Our first story comes to us from Michelle Castellano.

She told it for us at a story slam in L.A.

where we partner with Public radio station KCRW.

At our slams, musical timekeepers let the tellers know when it's time to wrap up.

If you hear a weird sound at the end of this story, that's what it is.

Here's Michelle, live at the moth.

So, I didn't realize how Midwestern I am until I moved to New York City, specifically

...