Up in Flames - Again! Page 2

  “We’ll get there when we get there,” Carol said. “But I still don’t think it was her.”

  Chapter 2

  The Lovely Couple

  Carol sat in her house, petting her pet husky and considering the consequences of staying home rather than going to meet with Sergeant Hansen at the police department. Just the thought of investigating after all these years left a knot in her stomach. It had been three hours since she left the crime scene, and almost an hour since Sergeant Hansen informed her the interviews she’d requested were complete.

  “I’m sorry, baby,” Carol said to her dog. “I have to go to work, but I’ll be back tonight, okay?”

  As if in response to Carol’s words, the husky wagged his tail and laid down in his bed.

  Carol sighed and collected her jacket from the closet. As much as she dreaded the investigation, she had to admit, a part of her missed the thrill of it all. She tried to keep her spirits up, remembering the good days.

  By the time Carol arrived at the station, Sergeant Hansen was packing and preparing to go home.

  “Ah, you made it,” he said. “I was beginning to worry.”

  “Yeah, right in time, it seems,” Carol said.

  “I was gonna give you a call before I left, but thank you for saving me the trouble. I’ve got a son expecting me at his soccer game, and I’ve sure missed enough of those over the years.”

  Carol laughed. “Well, if you’ll set me up in a room somewhere with this footage, I’ll let you go. There’s no reason you should have to babysit me while I watch an interview you’ve already seen in real life.”

  “I’m sure you can handle it.” He chuckled. “I hope you find it as disturbing as I did.”

  “Disturbing?”

  “Well, not really in a bad way. But just wait—you’ll love it. I’ve got the disks here. If you’ll make sure the door gets closed and locked when you leave, you can use my office.”

  Carol smiled and took the disks from the sergeant. After helping log Carol into his computer and closing out all the confidential windows, Sergeant Hansen wished Carol and his co-workers a good night and headed home, much to Carol’s relief. She preferred working alone in these situations so she could replay any part of the interview that she wished as many times as she wanted to.

  “All right, let’s see what Johnny had to say,” she muttered as she pulled up his interview.

  “How long have you known Mei?” the sergeant said on the screen.

  “She was in my seventh-grade math class,” Johnny said. “Then we ended up in the same dance class and got paired with each other constantly because we had the same dance style. We went all the way through high school together, as best friends.”

  “Can you tell me more about your relationship before it became romantic?”

  “Oh, yes - I love talking about those days.” Johnny leaned back in his chair and smiled. “Mei was the best friend I could ever ask for. See, my family struggled every day just to afford our basic needs, and dancing was my only escape from all that. We lived in the cheapest, smallest apartments we could find, and because of the location, I was constantly afraid of what might happen to me during the walk home. Whenever I danced, that all just seemed to disappear.

  “When I met Mei, her parents were at the height of their toxic behavior. In middle school, she was also using dance as an escape from reality. We bonded right away without even knowing each other’s story–and everyone could see it, too. I mean it—literally no one was surprised when we got married, not even our eighth-grade dance teacher. But in middle school, we never talked about the bad stuff in our personal lives. We just danced.

  “In high school though, those conversations about real-life situations started coming up on their own. Mei’s parents were well-off, so when she found out I was poor, she started asking them to buy her food and clothes she didn’t even like, just so she could sneak out and give them to me and my family. When I found out about what was going on between her parents, I wanted to do something to help her through it, like she did for me...

  “One day, I went to a school assembly for all the low-income kids, and learned about a lifeline dance program for kids who couldn’t afford extracurricular activities. I knew she would love nothing more than to be able to go dance the nights away rather than sitting and listening to her parents fight, and I qualified for the low-income option–but I also found a loophole that would let me bring her with me, because her driving was the only way for me to get home safely after class.

  “I was doing all this to repay her for everything she’d done for me. But when I told her about it, she started crying. Apparently, things at home were much worse than I knew… We went to those classes together for two years, and ended up networking our way into the top crews in the city. She started out in an all-girl crew, and I started out in a crew with some guys who went on to become big-deal K-pop stars. Then, after high school, we formed our own crew together. And in the past ten years, we became what we are now.”

  “And when did your relationship become something more than a friendship?” Hanson asked.

  “Well, after we graduated high school, we dreamed of creating our own dance crew. A few of our friends joined us. We spent so much time together–me and Mei–trying to build our brand, that eventually, we just realized how much we loved being around each other and how good we were together. We made so many of our dreams a reality together…

  “We won our first big competition a couple years back, and that’s when I got up the courage to let her know how I felt…I kissed her, right onstage. Our brand grew so fast after that, time just flew by. Then, about six months ago, we finally had a minute to sit down and talk about things. That’s when I proposed. We got married three months later.”

  “Was it a big wedding?” Hansen asked.

  “Yes and no,” Johnny replied. “One of our buddies livestreamed the whole thing, but there were only a couple dozen people there.”

  “And when did you decide to get divorced?”

  “That depends on who you ask,” Johnny said. “I’ve never been fond of divorce, so I didn’t wanna believe that could happen to us. Mei, on the other hand, saw her parents try to hold a marriage together for so long that it became toxic for everyone. She felt it would be better to end things before they got to that point, or before kids came into the picture.”

  “Now, I know you said it was a mutual decision, but I’m just curious if there’s more to it. Did either of you express any discontent about it?”

  “Well, like I said, I didn’t love the idea. But I wasn’t about to let all the things we built fall apart just because we shouldn’t have married. But I didn’t really look at it like a divorce because we decided on it within the timeframe where we could’ve just said ‘never mind’ and not have to do any paperwork. We really were best friends, but that didn’t mean we could live together. We were just too different.”

  “And when did you decide this?” Hansen said.

  “I think we both saw it pretty early on. Everyone in America seems to think all Asian Americans work well together, but neither of us were American enough for that. Korean culture is different enough from rural-Chinese culture that we butted heads on a lot of our ideas regarding what a home should look like,” Johnny said. “We’re both really stubborn. So from the first night, we saw that things weren’t going as we’d expected.

  “After a while, we were actively avoiding each other at home—that obviously didn’t seem healthy. So we sat down, talked about it, and decided that maybe we needed to consider going back to how things were before. We didn’t make it official right then, but it seemed to be the best option. Then I met Kiki, my current girlfriend, and I talked to Mei about her. She said she thought that was the best time to announce our separation, because she didn’t see our relationship lasting, anyway.”

  “Was she angry about Kiki?”

  “No. She was actually relieved when I told her. She said she was dreading that it might break my
heart if she told me how she really felt, because she didn’t see any way our relationship could continue. I was too much like a brother to her and getting married hadn’t changed that. So she was relieved to know someone came into my life who might be able to make me happy in ways she felt she never would be able to.

  “She wanted me to be happy with a Korean girl who understood me better, and I wanted her to find someone she actually loved. I felt like that part of our relationship was always hardest for her because she still looked at me like a brother and best friend. How do you change the way you’ve loved someone for so long, you know? It was actually one of the strongest, happiest moments we ever had together, because for that moment, we were only thinking about each other’s happiness.”

  “Since you’ve known her, has Mei ever displayed any violent behaviors?” Hansen asked.

  Johnny shook his head. “No. She doesn’t have the ability to be violent, even toward animals. The only way she would ever hurt someone is if they tried to attack her first—and even then, she would feel bad about it. A dog could bite her and she would make excuses for it or blame herself rather than the dog!”

  “Has she ever grown frustrated about not getting her way, or gotten angry at you for saying ‘no’ to her?”

  “Never. She’ll make it obvious that she disagrees. But even if I don’t do things her way, she usually waits until it comes back to bite me and says, ‘I told you so’, rather than get mad at me.”

  “Was Kiki upset to learn you were married?”

  “No. There was nothing romantic between us until after Mei and I were over. When we met, Kiki knew I was married. And when I developed feelings for her, I went to Mei about it first. I only asked Kiki out after telling her everything about Mei. I thought that was the honorable thing to do.”

  “Does Mei know Kiki?”

  “Yes. She was actually in the same all-girl dance crew with her ten years ago.”

  “And they were both okay with that?” Hansen raised his eyebrows.

  “Yeah...”

  “Okay, he’s definitely hiding something,” Carol said to herself, re-watching that particular segment. “Guess we’ll have to see if Mei has the same story...”

  “How long have you known Johnny?” Hansen began in Mei’s interview.

  “He was in my seventh-grade math class and my eighth-grade dance class.” Mei said. “We were always partners, so we got really close in dance, and kept taking dance classes together all through high school.”

  “Whoa.” Carol paused the interview. “Is it just me, or was that answer rehearsed?”

  Carol played the video, and as Sergeant Hansen warned her, felt very disturbed. The entirety of Mei’s interview was almost identical to the interview with Johnny, just with different wording. Carol had expected giving them the same interview questions to reveal differences in their stories, but in this case, it did exactly the opposite. Either they were both hiding something, or they were the two most honest and confident people Carol had ever seen interviewed.

  “Were you and Kiki okay with having been romantically involved with the same man?” Hansen asked on the tape.

  “Well, me and Kiki weren’t the problem,” Mei responded.

  “Finally, something different,” Carol muttered.

  “What do you mean?” Hansen asked.

  “Kiki and I were fine with it, but the other girls from our crew...” Mei shook her head. “They weren’t too fond of it, and they weren’t very nice to Johnny about it, either...”

  “What did they do?”

  “Well, one of them did a lot of fishing for red flags, and kept trying to get Kiki to admit she’d been with Johnny while he was still married to me–which I know for a fact isn’t true. Then, another girl–who no one ever trusted anyway - kept disliking all of Johnny’s dance videos, and leaving nasty comments about how Johnny was a cheater and a liar. She even got her friends to do it with her to make it look more.

  “Then, one of her friends just had to add to the drama and straight-up claimed that she was with Johnny while he was married too. She practically wrote a novel about it. We hid and reported the comment, and proved it untrue, but not before several girls stopped showing up to the studio because they didn’t want Johnny to make any moves on them... I’ve tried to reach out to those girls and set the record straight, but it seemed the damage had been done. That’s actually what I was doing when Johnny’s house burned down...”

  “Okay, there are several things I want to follow-up on from that,” Hansen said, sliding a notepad across the table to Mei. “If you have them, can you write down the names and phone numbers for both girls you mentioned, and who you were with when the house burned down?”

  “Sure,” Mei said, pulling out her phone.

  “First though—can you tell me more about what you were doing when the house caught fire?”

  “Well, I teach an afternoon class on Saturdays that used to be the absolute favorite of this girl, Maisie,” she said. “Maisie comes from an abusive background, so she was one of the first to stop showing up when Johnny was accused of wrongdoing. I thought that if I went to talk to her right before the class, I might be able to convince her to come. But I ended up walking in on something that triggered me...

  “I don’t really remember what I said to her, but I remember sitting in my car and considering calling the cops. I was so torn up over it because it reminded me of how dance used to be an escape from those things for me… And now I had a student who was missing out, all because of a lie. I felt so sick… I just ran home and ditched teaching for the day. Johnny doesn’t teach during that time, so it wasn’t a big deal for him to cover, especially after I told him what happened at Maisie’s.”

  “What happened at Maisie’s?” Hansen prodded.

  “The first thing I heard when she opened the door was a woman screaming, and a man yelling back at her,” Mei recalled. “It sounded like he was hurting her... Maisie said it wasn’t really a good time, and then I heard the fighting get worse… It was way worse than it ever got with my parents, who never physically hurt each other, at least. But it sure gave me some flashbacks.”

  “And you said you only considered calling the cops?”

  “Yes...” Mei lowered her gaze shamefully. “I dialed 911, but then I remembered something Maisie told me a while ago... Her mom would never rat on her dad to the police because her dad would end up hurting Maisie…You see, neighbors had called the police before, but he always assumed Maisie did it, even if the police specifically stated that it was a neighbor. So I didn’t want Maisie to get hurt. Of course, that only made me even more upset, knowing I couldn’t do anything to help her...”

  “So there’s a chance Maisie wouldn’t admit to any of this if the police came to talk to her?”

  “I don’t know,” Mei said. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

  “Okay, one last thing—do you store a can of extra gasoline in your car?”

  “No...” Mei said, looking slightly confused. “I probably should, huh?”

  “Do your parents store cans of gasoline anywhere on their property?”

  “Um...” Mei furrowed her brow. “I don’t know... My dad likes to be prepared for emergencies, so I guess he might. But we’ve never needed it.” She eyed Hanson suspiciously. “These questions are getting really random...”

  “Mei, did you go to Johnny’s house today while he was at the studio?” Hansen continued.

  “No...”

  “Do you still have a key?”

  “Yeah... Wait...” Mei narrowed her eyes. “Johnny told me the fire was an accident, but it wasn’t, was it?”

  Chapter 3

  Details Gone Unseen

  The next morning, Carol went to the studio to see if she could catch some of the couple’s students before their class. After sitting in the lobby for several minutes, she realized she was almost an hour too early. But rather than try to drive home and back in such a short time, she leaned back in her seat and relaxed. br />
  Not long before it was time for the class to start, she noticed a man in a security shirt walking passed her more frequently the longer she sat there.

  “I’m an investigator for Mr. Jeong, don’t worry,” Carol said as the man passed her again.

  “Oh, okay!” he said, chuckling. “Man, you freaked me out! I’ve never seen you before, so I thought you might’ve been the one who lit the house on fire!”

  Carol smirked. “Quite the opposite,” she said. “Do you know Johnny and Mei well?”

  “Yeah, I’ve known them forever. We were in dance classes together in high school, and then I joined their crew after we graduated.”

  “Really? How’d you end up becoming their security?”

  “Well, that’s been more of a recent development. I used to be in there dancing and choreographing with them, but when I got a knee injury, dancing put too much strain on it. I’d already invested so much in the company though, so Mei was kind enough to find a way to keep me employed by them.”

  “When you say ‘invested’, what exactly do you mean?”

  “Time, money, emotional-attachment...”

  “Did you invest a lot of money in the company?”

  He nodded. “Oh, yeah. When Johnny and Mei first pitched the idea to form our own crew, they didn’t have enough money to start it! Johnny spent all his time dancing, and Mei could only convince her parents to invest about twenty percent of what we needed. They were assuming all the other crew members were gonna invest the same amount, but Johnny didn’t have anything and there were only five other people–all from the same or similar backgrounds as him.

  “I was a bit smarter about that than Johnny was and had been working and saving money ever since I was old enough to get a job. I planned to put that money toward college, but I really believed in the potential we had as a crew, so I invested almost all of it in their vision. Of course, I got most of it back over the years. But I re-invested a lot of it when they bought this studio and when they got married. I’ll probably have to stick with them ten more years before I see the rest of my investment back.”