Capitol Punishment. Andrew Welsh-Huggins
behind us without taking my eyes off the road.
“Who?”
“SUV, two cars back.”
“How can you tell?”
“Educated guess, plus I’m pretty sure I saw it pick us up after we left the restaurant. Can you make out the driver?”
He glanced back. “It’s raining too hard.”
“OK. Take out your phone.”
“I’m not calling the police.”
“I figured as much. So how about doing something useful for a change and get ready to take a picture of the license plate?”
“It’s too far back and there’s cars between us.”
“Not the front. The back.”
“How?”
“Hang on.”
I drove into downtown, past the Statehouse and up toward Broad. At the last second I swung into the left turn lane without signaling, entered the intersection and tapped the brakes. The driver immediately behind us saluted my efforts with an angry horn and shot through the light on my right side. The second car followed, then the tail.
“Now,” I said.
“Got it,” Hershey said.
I completed the left turn, turned again and parked on Wall, a sliver of street running north-south between High and Front.
“How’d you do?” I said.
“Shitty.” He showed me a smeared blur that might have passed for art but definitely not for evidence.
“Next time,” I said.
DESPITE THE RAIN, WE got out, ran around the corner, dashed across High and through the glass doors of a small, stone-paneled building on the corner of the Statehouse grounds with “Underground Parking” etched in its façade. I followed Hershey down a flight of steps. A few moments later we emerged in a nearly empty parking garage. We walked past dozens of squat green pillars and a random leftover car or two until we reached a revolving door on the far side. Hershey pulled a key card from his wallet, waved it in front of an electric reader, and entered the door as it began to move. I followed a moment afterward.
“What are we doing?” I said.
“Entering the Statehouse.”
“Believe it or not, I figured that out. I mean, where are we going?”
“Up,” he said. “Got a treat for you.”
Inside, we ascended a steep flight of stairs past the jagged flanks of the building’s foundation. At the top, we paused by a glass cabinet holding old Statehouse artifacts. Behind it sat a pile of bricks, commemorating what a placard said was a rodent-infested former state office building dubbed “Rat Row.” To the right of the cabinet a sturdy-looking gavel lay atop a gleaming pedestal.
“Fashioned from a two-hundred-year-old oak tree that got hit with lightning last summer in southern Ohio,” Hershey said, examining it. “Not far from Justice Bryan’s hometown, as a matter of fact. Supposedly a replica of the original Statehouse gavel.”
“Where’s Bryan from?”
“Little town called Paw Paw Bottoms.”
“There’s no such place.”
“Sure there is. You’re the Ohio farm boy, Woody. Look it up.”
Hershey reached out and patted the gavel’s head. “Hefty bugger. You should show this to Anne.”
“Why’s that?”
“Perfect weapon if zombies ever make it this far. OK, this way.”
I followed Hershey around the corner and into the middle of a large hall. “The Crypt,” he said, gesturing.
“The which?”
“What they call the lower level. It feels basement-y, even though it’s the ground floor. There’s no single space in this building that better epitomizes what goes on around here.”
“Oh?”
He pointed down at the floor of alternating mottled white and rust-red ceramic squares. “Below us, floor tiles lifted from the old state lunatic asylum.” He looked up. “Above us, a terrific example of a groin vault.”
I examined the white, curved ceiling of painted bricks, crisscrossed with sprinkler pipes, and made out interlocking arches that met at a point overhead. I glanced at Hershey, looking for more explanation.
“An architectural design. Where two vaults meet to form a ceiling,” Hershey said. “Lunatic asylum floor, a groin arch overhead. Perfect.”
“Because—?”
“Because all these crazy people pass through here every day, working on all these lofty laws and resolutions and platforms and other bullshit, but the only thing anybody’s really thinking about is their groins.”
He laughed that same laugh, low and rich and infectious, and once again I joined in despite myself. He was like that annoying class clown you know you shouldn’t humor because you’re going to pay for it one way or the other, but you just can’t help it.
I ought to know, I reminded myself.
“Over here,” Hershey said, walking a few more steps and stopping in front of a green door recessed into the white brick wall. He pulled a jumble of keys from his pants pocket, selected one, looked casually to his left and his right, looked left again, unlocked the door and pushed it open. He gestured for me to enter. I walked into a darkened office illuminated by the light from a computer screen on a desk. Hershey followed behind and quietly pulled the door shut. He crossed the room and unlocked a second, smaller door to the left.
“What are we doing?” I said.
“We’re climbing. Hope you’ve been working out.”
I peered into the dark space beyond the newly opened door. Before me, a spiraling flight of stone stairs rose out of sight.
“Two hundred and seven steps,” Hershey said.
“No elevator?”
“Where’s the challenge in that?”
Less than a minute later, we stopped while Hershey used his cell phone to illuminate a printed phrase on the wall. “Commit No Nuisance,” it said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said.
“They’re not exactly sure. But back in the nineteenth century, this was a big destination for honeymooners. Climb to the top of the Statehouse! See the view!” He looked at me with a grin. “Honeymooners, Woody,” he said, winking.
I shook my head and we resumed our ascent. The narrow space, the stone steps, and the bare limestone walls made me feel as if I was really in the 1800s. We kept going, and going, and just when my knees were starting to protest, with my lungs not far behind, we emerged into what looked like a curved hallway bending around an inner, circular wall.
“Top of the Statehouse?” I said, once I’d caught my breath.
“Almost,” Hershey said, circling around to a set of stairs on the other side of the room. “This is 1857. We’re four years away from the finished product. Up here.”
We headed up another set of stairs, this time wooden, with the years of passage visible in the sagging middle of the boards. A minute later we entered a room identical to the one below, except that the limestone floor was replaced with wooden planks.
“Welcome to 1861,” Hershey said.
8
I STEPPED INTO THE UPPER ROOM.