“Five thousand. And it was Connor doing the promising.”

“Okay, I’ll tell him that.” Hannah turned back to the phone again. She was feeling a bit like an agent and she wasn’t sure whether she liked the role or not. “Winnie says Connor promised to pay her five thousand dollars if she signed. Is that okay?”

“That’s fine. We allotted six thousand in the budget.”

Hannah frowned slightly. “I heard Dean tell Connor that five thousand was as high as he could go.”

“Then Dean must have had plans for that other thousand. He was a whittler, Hannah. A lot of the guys who make the big bucks are.”

“What do you mean?”

“They nickel and dime the production companies. It’s like a guy who earns a hundred thousand dollars from a big corporation and steals pens and paper to use at home. He could buy his own, but it makes him feel good to put one over on the company.”

“And Dean did that?”

Ross laughed. “All the time. He just about drove our accountant crazy. You know those cheesecakes you delivered to his trailer? He charged the budget a hundred dollars for paper plates and plastic forks, and Michelle told me they cost less than ten dollars at the Red Owl.”

“Oh, boy!” Hannah breathed, shaking her head. “That really is cheap, especially because if he’d asked me, I would have provided them free of charge.”

“That wouldn’t have made any difference to Dean. He loved to pad his vouchers for out-of-pocket expenses. It was just the way he did business.”

Another reason somebody might have killed him, Hannah thought, but she didn’t say it. Since Tom Larchmont was the moneyman, she’d add it to his motive later. “Shall I tell Winnie it’s a go, then?”

“Only if you have dinner with me out at the inn tonight.”

Hannah laughed. “That’s extortion.”

“No, it’s desperation. I need to spend time with someone who doesn’t have a personal agenda and who isn’t directly involved with the movie.”

“In other words, you need a friend?” Hannah guessed, reading between the lines.

“That’s exactly right. Ask Winnie if I can meet her at her house in an hour with the money and the release form. I’ll hang on.”

“Ross wants to know if he can meet you in an hour at your place with the money and the papers,” Hannah reported, covering the phone with her hand.

“Fine by me, but tell him to bring Connor along. I don’t know this feller you’re sweet on, but I spent a lot of time with Connor when he was trying to get me to sign that paper. He was as polite as he could be and he ate three slices of my gooseberry pie. Haven’t seen anybody do that since my second-to-the-last husband died.”