Pinewood Corner Kitchen Chapter 5
Finding Casey Romano wasn’t difficult. There were a few people with that name in the United States, but not many. And only one was a chef located in Worcester County.
His public website had a phone number on it, so Gabriella didn’t feel like a hypocrite calling. After a few rings, someone picked up.
“Romano.”
“Hi, is this Casey Romano?”
“Yeah, who’s this?”
Here went nothing. “Mr. Romano, my name is Gabriella and I’m calling from the Foundation for Paranormal Studies regarding a case we’re working on.”
She expected him to laugh or hang up on her, but instead he said, “Oh yeah? What’s up?”
Dishes clanged in the background as he waited for her to speak. “We’re looking into some psychic phenomena in the area and your name came up in connection to it,” she said. “I was wondering if we could talk. I’m not a cop,” she added quickly.
Now he laughed, though it was more of a scoff. “Goddammit,” he muttered. “Those assholes don’t quit.”
“I mean it. I’m an investigator, not a cop.”
“I know that,” he said, still sounding irritated. “But you’re working on behalf of the fucking Chapmans, aren’t you?”
She glanced across the living room. Nobody else was in here, but James’s office door was open. “I’m not working on behalf of anyone but the Foundation,” she said. “I’m investigating claims of psychic attacks and your name came up.”
“But the Chapmans gave you my name.”
“Yeah.”
He let out a deep sigh that boomed over the line. “Alright,” he said. “I haven’t done shit to them. But you wanted to talk?”
“Please,” she said. “Is there a time that works for you?”
“I own a food truck, there’s never a time that works for me,” he replied. “But if you’re free tomorrow morning at nine, that’s as close as we’re going to get.”
She was in at ten, but James wouldn’t mind. “That works,” she said. “Thank you.”
His skeptical laugh had her dreading this conversation as well.
***
Casey Romano’s food truck – simply named Romano – was parked at the edge of a small business plaza in the city of Worcester. Since Worcester itself was technically mostly South Worcester County’s domain, James had made sure to send a message to Genevieve, the captain there, to let her know what was happening. Gabriella had never met Genevieve, but she’d sent a text offering any help Gabriella might need. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that, but she did appreciate the offer. Especially after feeling so isolated with the Chapmans yesterday.
As she pulled into the plaza a few minutes before nine, she spotted Casey Romano setting up the area around his food truck. The truck itself was yellow, with a festive-looking menu she couldn’t read from where she was parked. Her brief research beyond his website yesterday had led her to a Facebook page where he advertised sandwiches and rice bowls, so she assumed that everything on that menu would be similar. And he must have been doing some prep work inside the truck too, because the scent hit her as soon as she opened her car door, grilling chicken and what actually smelled like homemade bread. And once again, she had not eaten appropriately beforehand to prepare herself to be in this situation.
Casey stopped what he was doing as she approached, standing straight and clearly studying her. He was younger than the Chapmans, probably a little younger than James, and large, with a wide face and thinning black hair. He didn’t smile as Gabriella approached him.
“Thank you so much for taking a few minutes to talk to me,” Gabriella said. “Just to let you know, for safety reasons, I have a communication device here-” She pointed at the comms unit pinned to her chest, “-and it’s broadcasting back to my headquarters, where my coworker is listening in.”
“Are you expecting any danger?” Casey asked, looking amused.
“You never know.”
“I mean, I guess I generally do,” Casey said. “Not everything, of course. I definitely didn’t see getting framed for psychic attacks in my immediate future.”
“The Chapmans said that you had an altercation of some kind?” Gabriella asked. “Do you want to tell me your side?”
“Does it matter?” Casey asked, rolling his eyes before returning to the condiment basket he was filling. “If you’re working for them, then-”
“I’m not working for them,” Gabriella said, reining in her frustration as much as possible, but too aware that some was spilling out. “I do not work for the Chapmans, I work for the Foundation for Paranormal Studies. I only care about the phenomenon that’s happening and where it’s coming from, okay? If that isn’t something you can talk about with me, then fine, it’s not the first time in the past twenty-four hours. But please just let me know now so I don’t waste anymore of either of our time.”
Casey looked at her for a second, and she had a feeling both that Bradley was laughing at her back in headquarters and that she was going to hear about this from James when Bradley inevitably told him what she’d said. But then Casey laughed, his face suddenly less stern. “Alright,” he said. “Sorry, it’s just that those two clowns have put me through hell, so I’m a little defensive about it.”
“What did they do to you?” Gabriella asked.
“So yeah, I guess you could call it an ‘altercation,’” Casey explained, motioning for Gabriella to sit down at the picnic table with him. “They had a recipe up for a filet mignon on cast iron. I tried it and immediately noticed several flaws, so I was a little heated that I spent good money on that steak and it was almost inedible without major adjustments. We ended up eating it chopped up in a salad, which is not the fate I wanted for that very nice cut of beef. So I commented.”
He glanced behind Gabriella, long enough for her to turn too, seeing nothing except the slowly filling plaza against the blue sky. She turned back to him. “Then Steve wrote back in this condescending way,” Casey continued. “And yeah, I can be a bit of a hothead sometimes, I’ll admit it. We got into it until they threatened to ban me. I didn’t give that much of a shit about it, and I didn’t exactly know how they would do that. So I let it go. Whatever. But that didn’t stop all their flying monkeys from coming after me. Suddenly I’m getting all these bad reviews for my business, I’ve got people mocking me on social media, and they started calling my house. I have two kids, this is serious shit. But the cops said there wasn’t anything they could do and it finally faded out. Maybe they found another victim, I don’t know. They told everyone not to come after me, but then apparently I became a running joke in their posts, so I’m sure that was sincere.”
“Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” Bradley muttered over comms.
Gabriella didn’t get it, but Casey let out a bark of laughter. “Honest to God,” he said. “I’m their ‘medium rare friend.’ Oh, and the steak recipe no longer shows up unless you search for it directly. Plenty of others do, but not that one. So after all of that, they apparently recognize that their steak recipe sucked.”
She’d have to ask Graham if he knew about the joke, though he hadn’t seemed to recognize Casey’s name when the Chapmans said it yesterday.
“They said you’re psychically attacking them in their home.”
“I bet they did,” Casey said, rolling his eyes again. “Yeah, I’ll say it flat out. I’ve got psychic abilities. And I bet if I tried really hard, I could maybe make someone’s computer turn off before I had to go to bed for a week. But I’m not attacking them. I don’t have that ability and I don’t want to have it.”
He looked behind her again, a move that was deeply unsettling. “What’s going on?” Gabriella asked, turning again.
“Nothing,” Casey said, waving her off. “But I’ve spoken about it online on my friend’s YouTube channel. They probably saw it and that either inspired them to cook this bullshit up or they found a scapegoat for their problem. Either way, I’m sure they’re blaming me, but I didn’t do it.”
“Do you have any idea who it might be?”
“No clue,” Casey said. “But I bet there’s plenty of possibilities. Steve and Jan are great at what they do, they’re talented and they have some killer recipes. But they’re shitty people and that’s kind of becoming an open secret, especially in the local food scene. Which isn’t great for them since they’re trying to establish a strong presence and eventually open an actual restaurant out here. Probably because they can’t afford Boston. Which is fair, I sure as fuck can’t either. But if their fans came after me that bad for arguing over steak, I bet there’s other situations like that as well. So you’ve got your work cut out for you, kid.”
He smiled at her, a whole lot friendlier than he’d been when she first arrived. And maybe it was that change that let her finally relax a little. “So you could turn off someone’s computer?” Gabriella asked.
“Maybe,” Casey said. “That’s probably the extent of it though. But here, watch this.”
He looked toward his truck, narrowing his eyes. After a second, a small metal napkin holder on the counter drifted six inches into the air, then settled back down, a few napkins spilling out onto the pavement.
“Oh, shit,” Gabriella said, before she could stop herself.
Casey laughed breathlessly and she turned to see him looking pale and sweaty. “That’s the extent of what I can do,” he said, noticeably swaying on his bench. “If you want to communicate with spirits or get some glances into the past or future that can’t always be explained, I’m your man. I’m great at talking to spirits and I’m decent at seeing the present or the future. If you want to attack somebody in their home from far away, I’m a bad choice.”
“Thank you for talking to me,” Gabriella said. “It must have been horrible dealing with all of that.”
“Yeah,” Casey said with a bitter laugh, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “It was. If I’d been able to see that particular future ahead of me, I would have kept my mouth shut about their awful steak.”
He still looked terrible. “Are you alright?” Gabriella asked.
He waved off her concern. “Yeah, it just takes it out of me,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
Considering he looked like he was thirty seconds from passing out, she decided she was going to worry about him. But then he stood up. “I’m fine,” he said again, and she wasn’t sure if her concern was just obvious on her face or if it was radiating psychically from her. “I’m just going to do my best not to throw up because nobody wants to buy food from the truck where the guy just vomited.”
Yeah, it was very unlikely this was their guy if one small psychic movement had hurt him like this. Gabriella had to be back at headquarters a little after ten, and she knew that Casey would be opening soon, so she got up too.
“Hey, if you need anything else, give me a call,” Casey said. “Or just stop by, the truck’s here six days a week. If I’m not working, my son Theo might be here. Or my brother. But most of the time, it’s me.”
He held out a hand to shake and Gabriella took it. Casey’s smile grew wider. “Alright,” he said approvingly.
“Alright, what?”
“Just that you know what you’re doing.”
“I try.”
He laughed and headed back to his truck.
***
“You’ve read most of the Chapmans’ website, right?” Gabriella asked Graham when she got to headquarters.
His laugh was more self-deprecating than she expected. “Yeah,” he said. “I know it’s a lot, but it’s a nice distraction.”
“I believe it,” she said. “Casey mentioned that they make jokes about him on the site. Their ‘medium rare friend.’ Does that sound familiar to you?”
“Yes, actually,” Graham said, nodding slowly. “Yeah, I’ve seen them mention him a few times.”
“Like, recently?”
“I just started following them a few months ago,” Graham admitted. “So I don’t know if the posts were that recent. But I do distinctly remember seeing that. That’s Casey?”
“Yeah. What kinds of things do they say?”
Graham hesitated a little. “Please don’t make me go back and find it,” Gabriella said.
“Sorry,” Graham said. “I know, they’ve been dicks to you and this is making them look even worse. I swear, they’re not bad people. They’re difficult, but they’re not bad.”
“I believe you,” Gabriella lied.
These people were bad people.
“They just mock him,” Graham said. “Like, if they’re talking about how to cook something, they’ll put in a little comment about how their medium rare friend might argue otherwise. Things like that.”
That sounded an awful lot like bullying. And that thought must have been obvious on her face. “I thought it was weird,” Graham admitted. “But that maybe he was in on it? Like it was some kind of mutual thing.”
“Nope,” Gabriella said. “Apparently they made his life hell for a while.”
Graham looked like he wasn’t sure what to say at that and she didn’t blame him.
