The Sharpest Needle Read online

‘I haven’t seen any, to be honest. I understand Mussolini is a fan.’

  ‘Indeed, a fellow countryman. Sprung from the same soil, as it were. It occurs to me, Addison, if you are interested in building a collection, perhaps this trip affords us a welcome opportunity.’

  I recognized a sharp elbow in the ribs when I heard one. ‘Would you gentlemen excuse me? I should acquaint myself with the other guests.’ I returned the auction catalogue to Selden, who accepted it without making eye contact. In his mind, I’d exited the high-flown confab long ago.

  The world rolling past the train was pitch black, the landscape veiled by darkness. I sat opposite the dark-haired man slaving over his sketchbook and studied my reflection in the window. I cupped my eyes and telephone poles flashed by on the far side of the glass, ghostly sentinels standing askew along the tracks as if warning us away.

  ‘You should be pleased you can’t see out.’ The artist didn’t stop drawing as he spoke, his cultured accent sounding as though he’d acquired it along with his suit. ‘Apparently, we’re travelling within feet of the coastline. Sometimes inches. The Pacific is a straight drop down outside that window.’

  I swallowed hard. ‘That’s one way to start a conversation. My name’s Lillian Frost. And you are?’

  ‘Timothy.’ He squinted at his efforts, shook his head, attacked the paper with an eraser.

  ‘Did you get a last name to go with the Christian one?’

  ‘Most assuredly.’

  He began sketching again. I waited a moment, letting him think I’d given up. ‘What brings you to the ranch?’

  ‘This train and an invitation.’

  ‘Will this be the level of discourse the whole weekend? I’m starting to think I should have brought a book.’

  ‘I’m never without this one.’ Timothy finally set it aside and looked at me. His eyes smiled, his lips did not. ‘I’m sorry. I feel like an imposter. I don’t know anyone on this train and I’ve never met Hearst.’

  ‘That’s all right. How’d you wangle an invitation, then?’

  ‘My sister had me tacked on to hers. She’s the one who wants everyone to know our last name. Vera Randolph.’

  It took me a moment to make the connection. ‘She wants to be an actress. She knows Walter Kehoe.’

  I had at last roused Timothy’s interest. ‘You’ve met her?’

  ‘At Marion’s beach house. I’ve never been to the ranch before either.’

  My success was short-lived. Timothy set to work in his sketchbook again. ‘What are you drawing?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing, really. I’m just looking to fill the time.’

  So was I. I turned back to the cloaked world beyond the window and thought about how far we had to fall.

  I drifted off to sleep. I woke up. Timothy was still sketching. I dozed again. When I next opened my eyes, Timothy had also dropped off, protectively cradling his notebook. I could glimpse part of his latest effort, a rough illustration of me catnapping against the window. It seemed reasonably accurate: my mouth hung open, and I looked vaguely annoyed.

  Elsewhere in our private car, Selden displayed a full-color art catalogue to Addison, clearly contemplating a foolhardy purchase. His Lordship and Her Ladyship remained locked in battle over the backgammon table, oblivious to the snoring of their two companions. The porchlight of a house flashed by the carriage window, as tiny as a firefly and as remote as a dream.

  The next thing I knew, Addison was gently shaking me awake. ‘Good morning. Welcome to San Luis Obispo.’

  I felt embarrassed, then caught sight of my reflection and felt worse. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Almost four in the morning. A few delays on the line.’

  I darted into the restroom to tame my sleep-matted hair and reapply my makeup. Selden busied himself at the bar. ‘Last call, anyone? The cocktails will take a marked dip in quality from here on out.’ The duke gestured for a pair of drinks. I hoped one was for his wife.

  An efficient team of men uncoupled our carriage; it would wait on a siding until the return leg. We trooped through the quaint train station to a waiting line of cars. One of them was the touring sedan I’d seen outside Marion’s beach house. The chauffeur tipped his cap to me, flashing his teeth and his brogue. ‘If we’re to keep meeting like this, miss, you must let me drive you.’

  Before I could respond, Selden called to him. ‘Owen, good morning.’

  Owen – first or last name, I wondered – snapped into his professional mien at once. ‘Good morning, Mr Selden. Mr Kehoe suggested I pick you up along with Mr Timothy.’

  ‘Present,’ Timothy sighed, handing his valise to Owen and climbing into the car ahead of Selden.

  The other cars were even more spacious. Addison and I had ample room to stretch out. ‘Please make yourselves comfortable,’ our driver said with a pep indicating he’d just drained an entire coffeepot. ‘We still have some distance to travel.’

  We caravanned through the dark, a quartet of vehicles making steady progress. Addison tried recounting his conversation with Selden but soon succumbed to the journey’s lulling rhythms, Panama hat perched on his knee.

  Eventually, the driver cleared his throat. ‘I thought you’d like to know we’re entering Mr Hearst’s property.’

  ‘Then we’re almost there?’ I asked.

  ‘Not quite, miss.’

  The sky began to lighten, revealing the mist gathered around the surrounding slopes like a blanket pulled close for warmth. Addison nudged me and pointed. A house ablaze with light adorned one of the hilltops like a jewel-studded crown.

  ‘La Cuesta Encantada,’ Addison whispered. ‘Behold the Enchanted Hill.’

  I thought I was dreaming. Then the house vanished, and I was certain of it.

  We proceeded up winding roads. With each treacherous switchback, the house would disappear, only to return to view a moment later, brighter, more real, more solid. The voyage to the summit replicated the approach of Christmas morning. Knowing it was getting closer only made the wait unbearable.

  At long last our car came to a halt at the foot of a flight of stairs. I raced up them as if heaven awaited at the top. In the inky half-light, my mind fogged by sleep, I could only take in scant impressions: the mammoth pool; pathways slicing through impossibly verdant grounds, eruptions of color everywhere; breathtaking views no matter which way I turned. And looming over it all, the house itself, its twin spires giving it the air of a cathedral. One as close to God as it was possible to get.

  Marion stood on a balcony, waving down at us bedraggled new arrivals. By the time we wended our way through the gardens to the house’s massive front door, passing several outbuildings the size of stately homes, she was waiting alongside Hearst. He alone looked bright-eyed, his reedy ‘Good morning!’ to each guest sounding both rote and warm. Marion’s dog Gandhi raced around at their feet, a red streak.

  Kehoe, fists balled into the pockets of his striped satin robe, moped next to Vera, her hair in a net. She went up on the tips of her toes to search for someone, likely her brother. Kehoe thrust out his hand at me.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said grumpily. ‘Walter Kehoe.’

  Had I been alert, I wouldn’t have corrected him. But I was too exhausted to think clearly. ‘We’ve already met, Mr Kehoe,’ I told him, and he spun away, irked to have squandered a perfectly good greeting on me.

  That left me facing Vera. ‘Hello again,’ I said. ‘I had a nice chat with your brother on the ride up.’

  She nodded, peering over and around me. I recalled Timothy’s words: he’d been tacked on to his sister’s invitation. I hadn’t put the pieces together on the train. Timothy was here only so his sister would not be unaccompanied, his presence providing cover for Kehoe’s mistress. Marion and Hearst might be unmarried, but that relationship didn’t excuse any hanky-panky on the part of the guests. For that, additional steps would have to be taken.

  Marion made her way over to me, her face lined and puffy. ‘You made it!’ she cried
, pulling me in for an embrace. As she did, she whispered in my left ear, her stammer pronounced. ‘Haven’t found the painting yet, but I have an idea where it is. We’ll look for it this afternoon.’ She swung around to my other ear. ‘Did you bring the gin? Better hurry and unpack your bags. If the maids get to them first, they’ll confiscate the hooch until your trip home.’

  She then stepped away from me and announced gaily to all assembled, ‘We have a wonderful champagne breakfast laid on. You’ll be done just in time to watch the sun burn the mist off the hills. Then you can recover with a nap before luncheon at two-thirty. Come on, everyone, inside! Gandhi, lead the way!’

  I ran back to the stairs, hoping to see where my suitcase was going, but it had already been whisked away. As I returned to the big house, I spotted Vera and Timothy. They had stolen away from the others, taking refuge in a bower alongside a statue of a slouching young man. His form was so blindingly white it seemed illuminated from within, almost casting light over the twosome as they exchanged hushed words.

  Closer quarters than siblings usually share, I thought.

  Then Timothy pulled Vera close and kissed her. The clinch struck me as distinctly non-familial, Vera’s rising up on tiptoe again proving it. Even the statue of the young man appeared to be leering at them.

  Then the twosome hurriedly separated, each taking a separate path to the house’s door where Kehoe squinted into the gloom for Vera. No one saw me or heard my strangled laughter. Vera was intimate with the ‘brother’ shanghaied to Hearst’s ranch to function as fig leaf for her relationship with the movie mogul. Brought up to provide some semblance of decency, Timothy had seized the first chance to be indecent. We’d travelled through the night hundreds of miles from Hollywood only to have brought its morals with us.

  Along with some gin. I hustled into the house to find it before the maids did.

  FIFTEEN

  Stirring from a luxurious nap, I gazed up at the goddess painted on the ceiling. Shrouded by clouds, a crescent moon behind her, she in turn gazed down upon a shirtless man with a baby on his chest. I wondered which of them would speak first, what the opening conversational salvo might be.

  The moments after our arrival had been a blur. Marion had whisked me to my room before breakfast. ‘All good unaccompanied young ladies shack in Casa Grande with us,’ she had explained. ‘I made sure you got one of the duplex suites. So cozy.’ A chasm of despair had opened on her face when we saw that the maids had beaten us there, unpacking my suitcase and removing the reserve of gin I’d transported for her. ‘Nuts,’ she’d stammered, the word difficult for her to crack. ‘You’ll get it back. Have one on the train for me. I’ve got more salted away.’

  The duplex suites were on two levels. Private bath and sitting room downstairs, sleeping quarters atop a twisting staircase with a rope as thick as a ship’s hawser as banister. Marion pointed out the painting on the ceiling over the bed – ‘She’s a goddess, Diana, I think’ – as well as the companion artwork above the sitting room, depicting Neptune on his chariot galloping away from the missus. ‘By Jean-Baptiste van Loo.’ Marion had suppressed a giggle. ‘I’m sorry. An old friend of mine, when she has to excuse herself, says, “Where’s the loo?” If she shows up this weekend, I’ll try not to send her in here.’

  Vera, as well as the duke and duchess, were staying in Casa Grande, while Addison had been assigned his own cottage. ‘B House, the smallest of the three.’ A note of apology sounded in Marion’s voice. ‘Only four bedrooms.’

  ‘I know Addison. He’ll muddle through.’

  Marion led me to the dining room. Bleary and punch-drunk, I sensed only the room’s enormity. Few of the other guests had lingered. Vera and Timothy sat separately, making like they scarcely knew each other after their passionate reunion on the esplanade. Selden bent Hearst’s ear, our host nodding patiently then saying, ‘We have the whole weekend to discuss this.’ Addison surveyed the smoked kippers with delight.

  Marion had pressed a glass of champagne into my hand. I told her I couldn’t possibly drink it. ‘This is nearly champagne,’ she said. ‘Apple juice and sparkling water. We can’t incapacitate you just when you’ve arrived.’ I bolted the glass, dimly recollected eating toast points with something or other on top, then staggered back to my room with only two stops for directions. As I sank into slumber beneath the watchful eye of a goddess, my last thought was Pouring some real bubbly wouldn’t have killed them.

  Refreshed, I changed into moss green slacks with copper buttons on both hips and a multi-colored striped blouse. Almost-tactile sunlight flooded my downstairs sitting room, and I took a moment to bask in it. A card on the desk bore the menus for the day – spareribs for lunch, roast partridge and gravy for dinner – along with the title of the evening’s entertainment. Hearst had somehow acquired a copy of Paramount’s The Cat and the Canary starring Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard, a film for which Edith had designed the costumes, and which wasn’t slated to open for months. That, I thought, is how you use power.

  A book had been left next to the card, with a note tucked inside. Art of the Mediterranean Masters, Volume II, by Professor Arnold J. Kibbee. I opened it to a reproduction of a painting. A woman in blue robes stared wearily at me, as if I were the latest taxicab to pass her in the rain. The blond infant she cradled had a knowing smile on his face and looked like he was about to try talking his way out of a hefty bar tab. I’d seen better paintings, certainly more religious ones.

  Beneath it was the caption, Madonna of the Hills, Paolo Montsalvo, 1798. The note marking the page read, So you’ll know what we’re looking for. M.

  Time to explore. I stepped outside Casa Grande and at once wanted to brace myself against its edifice for support. What had seemed like a dream in the weary wee hours was all the more miraculous when wide awake. The colors of the blooming plants that lined the pathways had a vibrancy that seared the eyes. The sky seemed dauntingly limitless, rushing to meet the equally broad Pacific with abandon, the two shades of blue colliding in a riotous third variation at the horizon. I was standing at a height at the very edge of the continent, yet something about the enormity of the house grounded me. For the next few days we would live inside one man’s vision, that of William Randolph Hearst, and it seemed expansive enough to shelter us all plus any vagabonds who happened by.

  Two steps into my perambulating, I heard a ringing. A butler posted outside Casa Grande’s enormous Spanish-style main doorway struck a brass cowbell with the solemnity of an altar boy. He took pity on me and paused the pealing. ‘Good afternoon, miss. Luncheon is served.’

  As he took up his task again, I entered the vestibule, pausing to admire the ancient tiles beneath my feet. ‘People died on that floor,’ Marion said from behind me. ‘They found it under the ash at Pompeii.’ She hooked my arm and asked how I’d slept as she led me into the dining room. ‘The refectory, they call it. Because that’s what it’s called in a monastery. Sometimes it feels like you’re eating in one.’

  I understood what she meant. The room was enormous, a table that could seat twenty people running most of its length, a fireplace deep and tall enough to accommodate several more at the far end. Marion sighed. ‘W.R. really should give you the tour. He knows all this backwards and forwards. Against the walls are choir stalls from a cathedral in Spain. I don’t know where their choir sits now. Hanging up there are some tapestries, which I keep threatening to replace with my quilts. You don’t quilt, do you? I love it. The flags on the other wall are also from Spain, and I’m trying to remember where the ceiling comes from. Probably Spain. W.R. collects them.’

  I opened my mouth, only to emit a faint noise from the back of my throat. Finally I forced out, ‘Collects what?’

  ‘Ceilings. I told you about the floor, didn’t I? W.R. buys them left and right. Or should I say up and down? Doesn’t care if the ceiling’s too small for the room. He has local artisans whip up a few more squares or tiles or whatever so it fits.’

  I considered the
refectory ceiling, with its multiple panels depicting religious figures. ‘Then some of those are’ – I refrained from saying ‘fake’ – ‘new?’

  ‘Yes.’ Marion studied me, amused. ‘You know, people are usually impressed by that ceiling.’

  ‘I am impressed.’ I looked up again, ready to wolf-whistle at it.

  ‘Oh, I think you are, but not in the way W.R. intended.’ Marion giggled. ‘Which is fine by me.’

  Although place cards had been set on the table, lunch was served buffet style. ‘Load up on grub,’ Marion whispered as the other guests filed in. ‘We’ve got a big afternoon, so better build your stamina.’

  Addison bounded over to say hello, looking well rested in a tan summer suit. The other men wore a dark-hued rainbow of sports shirts and slacks with matching fabric belts, although I had to guess about Kehoe’s belt because he felt comfortable enough to wander around with his shirt untucked. Vera pouted prettily in a dress of printed pink silk. I got the impression she and Kehoe had quarreled.

  Heeding Marion’s advice, I piled on the spareribs with hominy, lyonnaise potatoes, and succotash. My seat had me opposite Addison and catercorner from Marion – but also, I discovered with consternation, next to Hearst himself. What was I supposed to talk to the great man about? I tried conjuring up fruitful lines of inquiry, only to be distracted by the sight of ketchup and mustard bottles stationed along the table, a dispenser of paper napkins alongside each set.

  ‘W.R.’s idea,’ Marion said, putting her plate down. ‘Can’t have the food putting on airs.’ Gandhi trotted over to her and barked once. ‘They say you shouldn’t a feed a dog from the table,’ Marion said, then proceeded to do exactly that.

  Addison settled next to her, the two of them falling into easy conversation about mutual friends. Hearst made his way slowly toward me, his plate tipped precariously forward but not spilling over. Anthony Selden nipped at his heels, chattering away. ‘I can’t thank you enough for helping me get those wires out, W.R. This business never stops for a moment.’