I tugged Jack's sleeve. "Who's the man giving orders?" "Property master and studio manager." "Is he Lester Sanford?" I asked. "No," Jack said.

Just then, the property master turned, saw us, and grinned from ear to ear. "Jack! Jack Shepard?! Where've you been, you big lug!" He walked over with his hand out. Jack pumped it.

"Hi there, Benny."

"Who's the little lady?" Benny asked. "She's my, uh… " Jack glanced at me. "Partner," I whispered.

"New secretary," Jack declared. "Just hired her. Ain't she a looker?"

"I'll say." Benny smiled, looking me up and down like a prize racehorse. "I just don't get why you hired her when you could have married her." He laughed and finally addressed me. "Don't you think it's time your boss settled down?"

Settled down? My eyebrows rose at that one. From all the wild stories the ghost had told me, I just couldn't see the living Jack Shepard smoking a pipe in the suburbs with his feet up. Even in death, the expired gumshoe was climbing the walls of my bookstore, eager to glom onto the merest hint of excitement in our "cornpone" little town.

"I'm sure Jack's happy as a bachelor," I told Benny. "Besides, any woman he married would have to put up with-"

Jack loudly cleared his throat, shutting me up with a pointed stare. Obviously, he preferred that I refrain from speaking during this particular meeting.

"So how've you been, Benny?" he asked the stocky man.

"Good, good… things around here could be better, though. You know about Irving?"

Jack glanced at me. "Yeah. I read about what happened in the not-so-funny papers."

"We can't believe it around here. Pierce Armstrong arrested for murder?" Benny shook his head. "He would never do anything to hurt Irving. Pierce wouldn't hurt a fly! Do you know he could get the gas chamber for this?"

"Yeah, Benny, I know."

"Are you here for Pierce then?" Benny asked, almost hopefully. "Did he hire you to help fight the charges?"

"No." said Jack. I'm looking for a guy named Lester Sanford Know him?"

"Sure, I know Sandy. He's been with us almost eight months now. He's not here at the moment though."

"What's his title?"

"Title?" Benny shrugged. "On the credits it's assistant producer."

"Which translates to?"

"Transportation manager, truck driver, and senior grease monkey."

Jack stepped closer. "Does he own those two gull gray Lincoln Cabriolets in your parking lot?"

Benny paused then. He seemed to be considering Jack's tone. "What's this about?" he asked, his own voice suddenly less friendly.

Jack quickly backed off. "Oh, nothing important. It's just that I need a favor, see? I'm on a divorce case, and I'm trying to find a witness. I spotted one of Sandy 's cars at the scene, and I thought if maybe I talked to him, he'd help me out with a lead."

Benny scratched his ear with his pen. "Well, Sandy might be listed as the owner of those cars, Jack, but he wouldn't have been driving them. Those particular cars are being used for a six- week shoot."

"A shoot of what?"

"Movie's called East Side Serenade. We're wrapping it next week."

Jack's jaw worked silently. "Then anybody at the studio could have used those vehicles?"

"Oh, no. Not anybody." Benny said. "Those are expensive automobiles. Sandy keeps a strict log. And when those keys aren't on the shoot or with a driver who signs them out, then they're with me." Benny reached into his pocket, pulled out a massive key ring, and jingled it like Santa Claus shaking his sleigh bells.

"You wouldn't mind if I took a quick look at Sandy 's log book, would you?"

Benny smiled. "Not if you got another hot tip for me from that jockey friend of yours at Aqueduct. You do and she's all yours."

Jack nodded. "I'll ring you inside of a week. And that's a promise."

"Good enough for me." Benny waved his hand. "Come on over to my desk."

Benny rifled through a stack of clipboards and paperwork and found Sandy 's log. "What do you wanna know?" he asked, opening the log book.

Jack pulled out a slender notebook from inside his jacket pocket, riffled backward through some pages.

"First date I'm after is April sixteenth."

Benny's thick finger moved down a page in the log. "Here we are. Shooting wrapped at sunset and the car was signed out by an actor."

Jack frowned. "You let actors borrow these vehicles?"

Benny shrugged. "Part of the perks if you're a principal player. Irving doesn't pay much, you know, so he lets them borrow the studio's cars, as long as they keep them clean and bring them back with the gas tank full."

"Who's the actor that signed it out?"

Benny glanced at the large, bold block letters. "Pierce Armstrong." He frowned. "That's bad luck. I mean, you can't very well talk to him about being a witness to anything when he's already in the hoosegow for a capital crime."

"Check another date for me, would you?" Jack asked.

"Sure."

"May sixth."

Benny nodded. "There was filming early that day, on location in Manhattan. Looks like a principal checked the car out again."

"Who?"

Benny adjusted his glasses, squinted at the small, fluid script. "Pierce Armstrong."

Jack frowned. "But it couldn't have been. Armstrong was taken into custody the night of Vreen's stabbing, which was May fifth."

"That's odd," Benny admitted.

"Then you didn't witness the sign-out yourself?" Jack asked.

"Not when they're on location. You'd have to talk to Sandy or the director, young guy named Delahunt." Benny checked his watch. "Delahunt's somewhere out on Long Island shooting workarounds. Now that Pierce Armstrong's in jail, he's trying to finish the film without him."

"What about Sandy?" Jack asked. "He out on Long Island,

too?"

"Yeah, but not for the same reason. His wife just had a baby girl. He'll be off work for a few days at least."

Jack nodded. "Okay, when will Delahunt be back here then?"

"Tomorrow morning. But I doubt he'll remember what happened that day with the car." Benny shook his head.

"Everyone's pretty frazzled right now with Irving dead and Pierce arrested, and when you're trying to wrap a picture one day just melts into all the others. That's why we keep logs and lists." Benny pointed to the clipboards stacked on his desk.

"I understand," said Jack. "But I'd like to talk to the man anyway. Oh, and one more thing, Benny… "

"Sure, Jack."

"Is Hedda Geist on that picture, too?"

"Of course. She's under contract. Every film she's been in has been a hit for us. No way we'd make a movie without her in a leading role."

"So she's out there on Long Island, too?" Jack asked.

Benny nodded.

"Guess I'll come back tomorrow." Jack smiled. "That is, unless you've got another case for me tonight? How's the security around here since I solved your little problem a year

ago?"

"Tell you what, Jack, you did me a real favor finding that Larry Lightfingers on my staff. Put the fear of God into everybody. We haven't had one more disappearing prop since. The only thing's gone missing in months is a piece of wardrobe, and I'm pretty sure it just got misplaced."

"What was it?" Jack asked.

Benny shrugged. "Just one of Hedda's costumes. The silver gown she wore in Wrong Turn. We had two made exactly alike, 'cause one Hedda wore for the poster and the other we had to rip at the shoulder for the opening sequence. The ripped one we still got. The other one's lost." He waved his hand. "Believe me, Jack, it's no big deal. Nothing we'd need to hire you for. That thing looked expensive on screen, but it was actually pretty cheap goods."

Jack's eyebrow arched, he glanced down at me. "Sounds a little like Hedda herself."

We exited the building and headed back toward Jack's Packard.

"Okay," I said, as we walked by a line of row houses. "What was the DA's mistress doing wearing Hedda's gown? Who gave it to her? And what was Pierce Armstrong doing in a car outside the girl's hotel? Was he sleeping with her, too? Do you suspect this Delahunt character of anything? Or Lester Sanford? And can you trust Benny?"