Ignoring the jab, I pull the bottle from the bag and set it on the counter. “Is this from your store?”

He squints at the bottle. “How would I know?”

“Because you’re the only place in town that sells this kind of Chianti.”

Looking put out, he pulls a pair of readers from his shirt pocket, slides them onto his nose and leans forward to squint at the label. “Runs about five ninety-nine a bottle. Don’t sell a whole lot. Most of our customers prefer plain old Bud.”

“I need the customer’s name.”

“The only way we’ll have that is if they paid with a check or credit card. If he paid with cash, you’re shit out of luck.”

“Can you pull the records?” I ask. “I believe I have the date it was purchased.”

“Maybe.” He lifts a beefy shoulder, lets it drop. “How far back?”

“September twenty-second.”

His expression turns smug. “We only keep records for a month.”

“What about security cameras?” Tomasetti asks.

“Can’t afford cameras.” He sneers at me. “Not with the cops in this town breaking my balls. That fine cost me five hundred bucks.”

I try again. “What about credit-card receipts? Surely you keep transaction records longer than a month.”

He returns his attention to the magazine, turns the page, ignoring us. “Nope. Sure don’t. That would be against banking rules.”

Annoyed, I look at Tomasetti and sigh. He gives me a small smile, then turns and walks down the narrow aisle toward the rear of the store. “Do you smell something?” he asks.

He’s standing next to the walk-in freezer door. Only then do I realize what he’s doing, and I withhold a grin. “As a matter of fact, I do. Smells like rotten food.”

Hire sits up straighter. “What are you talking about? I just cleaned the freezer. There’s nothing rotten anywhere in this store.”

“You sure?” Tomasetti jabs a thumb at the freezer door. “Smells like you’ve got a dead cow in there.”

“That isn’t really a police matter,” I say reasonably. “Maybe we ought to call the Health Department and let them handle it.”

“Health Department?” Hire looks alarmed now. We have his full attention. “You have no cause to do that.”

“They’ll shut this place down in a New York minute,” Tomasetti mutters.

I look at Hire. “That would be a shame. There’s a race at the speedway this weekend. You’d lose a lot of business.”

Hire raises his hands. “All right! I’ll check to see if I have the damn name!”

Muttering beneath his breath, he stubs out his cigarette and slides off the stool. He glares at me, and then comes out from behind the counter. Without speaking, he heads toward the rear of the store. He’s midway down the aisle when a buzzer sounds, signaling a customer at the drive-through. Hire stops and turns. “I gotta get that.”