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. TALL, narrow windows circled the space and let in just enough of the downtown lights to bathe the room in twilight gray, but it was still difficult to see. I moved away from the stairs and stood at one of the windows and looked out at the statue of William McKinley glistening in the rain at the far western edge of the Statehouse lawn.
“What is this place?”
“Top of the Cupola,” Hershey said. “What the original architects went for instead of a dome. It was all about Greek Revival in those days. This is the highest point in the building.”
“Impressive.”
“Thought you’d think so. A little thank you for helping me out.”
I moved to the next window to the right. I said, “Curious how you got a key to this place. I assume they don’t hand those out to any old reporter.”
“You’d assume correctly.”
“So?”
“A lady friend of mine had a copy. We rendezvoused up here a couple of times.”
“To do what?”
“To ‘commit nuisance,’” Hershey said. “What do you think?”
“Give me a break.”
“What can I say? She had a thing for unusual meeting places.”
I looked at him, trying to see if he was serious. The glance he returned was inscrutable; boyish and teasing. The class clown.
“How’d this friend happen to have a key to the Statehouse Cupola?”
“Connections.”
“Who is it?”
“Next question.”
“OK. Is it a source? Or someone who might be following you?”
“No comment on the first count, doubtful on the second.”
“This is ridiculous. How am I supposed to find out who’s after you if you won’t tell me anything?”
“I didn’t say it was going to be easy. You’ll just have to trust me on this one.”
“Why?”
“Because if I gave you the name of every aggrieved woman I’d slept with, we’d be here all night. I’m sure you can identify. C’mere. Check this out.”
Before I could protest, he turned and played his cell phone flashlight across the room’s whitewashed wall. My eyes widened. I’d missed the sight before me as we’d entered the space. Hundreds of signatures covered the surface, big and small, in blue and red and black pen, some in bold flourishes, some in tiny script, a few with cartoony illustrations, almost all with an accompanying date. Hershey started walking, keeping the light on the names.
“It’s a tradition for visitors to sign when they come up here,” Hershey said. “Dates back well over a hundred years, although these are all relatively new. When they renovated this place in the 1990s, somebody thought it was a good idea to paint over everything up to that point. Can you imagine what was lost? I mean, Lincoln stopped here once, and not just lying in his casket on the way back to Illinois. But we’ll never know if he came up here. These are the only survivors from before.”
I followed his gesture. A low rough-hewn bench encircled the wall, names and dates carved into the planks.
“Here’s the oldest one I’ve found,” Hershey said, up ahead. He shone his light on the name. J. Cook, 1870.
“Any idea who that was?”
“Somebody who liked to commit nuisance, I’m hoping.”
We continued along the wall, looking at more names. I made out the signature of a former governor and a couple of reporters I knew, but few others. As we walked, I reminded myself I was supposed to be a bodyguard, not just a tourist. In that moment I realized how difficult it would be to detect an attacker up here. Because the room circled the curved inner wall of signatures, you couldn’t see very far in either direction. Anyone from an aggrieved woman to a pissed-off source could be lurking just a few feet away without being detected. I straightened up and started casting glances ahead and behind. I wondered if
