The Lies She Lived

Chapter 4 - Imani ('Mani)

"So" I clear my throat, not realizing the dry lump that has formed after hearing the graphic details of Izzy's death
"you said that you believe that her killer is someone who personally knew her, right? Are there any more potential suspects being questioned? Besides Liz and I, obviously." I add in with a snarky tone.
"We are looking into other suspects, yes." Detective Nelson says while scribbling down something on his notepad.
"Is there anyone who you think we should look into as a suspect?" He asks, to my surprise.
"Is it in your best judgment to choose who's 'suspect worthy' based on the suggestion of a fellow prime suspect?" He smirks at that and looks up from his notepad
"Never claimed you to be a 'prime ' suspect, and I'm curious to know." I shrug
"I'm not sure. I can't imagine any sane person doing that to her, let alone someone who knew her."
"Don't think of it as 'who could be capable of killing her' because even the most notorious of murders and serial killers were the most unsuspecting. Look at it as, who couldn't have any motive, anger or resentment or whatever, towards her that could have lead to an incident happening between them." I shrug cluelessly, sticking to my original answer.
"Or even if there's just someone who Izzy had those feelings towards? I'm sure you can think of a few of those"
Nelson gives me a look as if he's trying to egg me on for some info. I roll my eyes and give in to his request, just in the hopes to get some of this pressure he's trying to push on me. I name the first person that came to mind
"Izzy's father, I guess." Nelson's face forms into a mixture of surprise and satisfaction. I swear if my father was here he'd want to slap some sense into me. There's a set of rules he taught me at a young age when it comes to cops. Within these rules are a set specially for being questioned by them, I already broke two. 1: Never speak with the cops unless someone trustworthy is present with me. I rejected him sitting in on the questioning with me, I thought I could handle this on my own without him. 2: Never snitch unless it's beneficial to me and my safety and freedom. Maybe it isn't my place to mention Izzy's father but it's a bit too late now. Plus who's to say he shouldn't be looked into too, if I'm being questioned then he definitely deserves to be.
"Sergio Martinez, what makes you say him?" Nelson had his claws out ready to pounce at any dirt I could give on him. This could be beneficial to me too though, better to incriminate him than myself. And the original goal still stands, to find out who killed Izzy. So any lead is better than none, even a completely out there type of lead.
"It's just that, they've always had a troubled relationship. Izzy loved him but she surely resented him and all the shi- I mean crap, he'd put her and her mother through."
"What type of 'crap' exactly?"
"He was an alcoholic, probably still is, so I'm sure you could imagine the crap I'm referring to." Nelson starts writing in his notepad again, he baited me and now I'm caught on the hook.
"So he was abusive?"
"I mean, he'd be neglectful, hardly around. Then when he was around he was a mean drunk, there would be days Izzy would avoid him like the plague."
"Was he inflicting physical or sexual abuse on her as well?"
"Oh no," I say while shaking my head
"he never molested or sexually abused or any of that sort of thing to her, as far as I know. He was a scumbag but he wasn't that vile."
"What about physical?" I hesitantly hold my mouth closed, thinking whether or not I wanted to open this can of worms. Nelson is just staring into my eyes, awaiting an answer. I figure that this will be worthy of mentioning if anything, so I finally part my mouth to speak
"I've only ever seen one or two incidents for myself but yes, it's safe to say that it was a reoccurring thing." More scribbling in his notepad
"Can you tell me about the incident then?"

It was spring break of our freshman year. The friendship between Izzy, Liz, and I was flourishing, so naturally, we started spending more time together even outside of school. Originally, Izzy and Liz's families were going to go out of town together as a mini family vacation but last minute the Martinez's decided not to go, now that I think about it Sergio was probably the one behind that. He never cared to be apart of family get-togethers. The Flores's, not wanting to waste the time and money spent planning the trip, decided to go on their own. It turned from me being pressed because Izzy and Liz were gonna spend their break together without me, to Liz being pressed even though she would still be going to a nice ass resort. Izzy and I made sure to let Liz know that her presence would be missed while we planned out our week together. We weren't gonna do anything too special, just me hanging at her house binge-watching movies, eating junk food, and just playing around all over the house. It was the second day of spring break when Izzy and I were out in her backyard fooling around, having races, doing flips, and playing with her unofficial pet rabbit. There was this wild rabbit that made a home for itself underneath Izzy's back deck that she took a fondness to. She named him Sir Whiskers and would feed him little veggies, cautiously, as her mother would advise. Izzy's father hated her playing with the rabbit though, he'd chase him off until he ran through the neighbor's backyards. But he'd always come back, that same rabbit with sandy brown fur with two white spots on its back. We were attempting to play with Sir Whiskers with a paper towel roll when Izzy's father came stomping from the back door. Whiskers scurried under the deck at Mr. Martinez loud arrival. He was clearly irritated and tipsy, I figured that he and Mrs. Martinez were arguing while we were out in the back.
"Izzy! Clean up the yard of all this junk, I'm about to cut the grass." The junk he was referring to were sticks and other little toys Izzy had out that she tried to get Whiskers to play with. Before Izzy could respond her mother called out to us
"The chalupas are ready girls, come eat!"
"After lunch," Izzy said to her father while she hopped to her feet
"it's Imani's first time trying chalupas." She grabbed me by the hand and lead me into the kitchen. After we ate the meal Mrs. Martinez prepared, Izzy took me to her bedroom. She laid stretched out on her back on her bed as I sat in her hot pink saucer chair in a corner that's diagonal from the foot of her bed. She had "our playlist" playing out loud. It was a playlist of soft-sounding songs we'd suggest each other to listen to ever since that one day we listened to "Civil Twilight" together in our art class. "Grow" by Frances was playing
"God, her voice is so beautiful. I wish I had a beautiful voice"
"You do though." I said, followed by a scoff.
"you only think that 'cause it's me. And you know I mean singing voice." I rolled my eyes at her as I tried to keep from cracking a smile.
"You also know there's enough room on the bed, right?" Izzy said while rolling over on her stomach, with her usual sly grin.
"I'm good" I flipped through another page of the fashion magazine I was looking through.
"You're always so mean to me for no reason." She said playfully, I tried to keep my eyes on the magazine because I could feel her eyes locked on me at that moment. I ended up just getting up and distracting myself with something else in her room. I found myself skimming over all her jewelry and makeup brushes laid messily on her dresser
"Hey Isabella, where'd you get these earrings from? They're too cute" I held up the pair of crystal drop earrings
"I don't know, they were a gift. But why do you insist on calling me by my full name? Would've just told you it Izzy then when we first met." I shrugged my shoulders
"I don't know, maybe I just like it." That wasn't why, it was because nicknames were just a personal thing to me. Although we had been friends for a couple of months at that point, I just wasn't sure if I could fully accept her as a close enough friend for that. Call it trust issues but I had a rocky past of people who I viewed as my closest of confidant shamelessly stabbing me in the back. That plus the bullying is what caused me to go into high school with a completely different mindset and persona. Making sure I don't trust anyone enough to the point where they could hurt me. And making myself appear as cold and detached to hide how emotional I actually am. But with Izzy it was different, she could see through my little facade. Which terrified me, how well she could read me
"Just because I like 'Imani' doesn't mean I'm not gonna call you by 'Mani. Giving nicknames is just what best friends do." I tried thinking of a way to get off subject since I could tell that I wouldn't be comfortable with where the convo was heading, but then I noticed a sound. It was the soft yet noisy as if a loud sound was being muffled, buzzing of a lawnmower. It instantly clicked that I was hearing Izzy's dad cutting the grass, perfect chance to change the topic
"Weren't you suppose to clean up the back before your dad started cutting?" She shrugged with her hands out
"Whoops. He'll be fine, I'm sure it didn't kill him to pick up like five things. Plus he has one of those grass cutters where you sit and drive it, so it's not like he was gonna have to do much where he'd be worn out in the first place."
"Mmm, plain selfish I tell ya." I said sarcastically while shaking my head. Izzy tried to throw her plush pillow at me but I caught it.
"Says the puta who won't even compromise and call me by my nickname. AND not to mention how I bring you into my home and feed your ass." I gasped, pretending to be offended and threw the plush pillow right back at her, hitting her straight in the head. She let out a half yelp and half laugh, we fake argued for another couple of minutes before watching online videos together. A half-hour later we went backstairs, wanting to go back in the backyard so Izzy could practice some dance routine we watched.
"Just watch, I'm about to kill this choreo, post it, then go viral and become famous." She said as we walked out onto the back deck.
"Sounds like every late millennial's dream come true"
"Oh just you wait 'Mani, just you wait." She said while searching for the perfect spot to film at in the grass. I rolled my eyes at her and took out my phone, getting ready to record her. Then that's when I heard a shriek, so jarring that I almost dropped my phone from my hands. I stepped into the grass and went over towards the side of the deck to join Izzy to see what caused her to scream. It was Sir Whiskers, he was laid out dead in the grass. His body looked stiff and the position his body was frozen in was stretched out as if he was in mid-run when he died. It was honestly one of the weirdest things I've ever seen, warrant I had never seen a dead rabbit before. We redirected our attention to the heavy footsteps on the deck, it was Mr. Martinez. He leaned on the railing, towering over us even more than usual. He had a spiteful expression on his face and a Corona in hand
"Next damn time I tell you to do something, do it." He snarled in a low tone before casually walking back into the house while taking a drink from his bottle. I looked back at Izzy and her face was completely covered in fury. Jaw clenched, forehead vein-popping, pulled in eyebrows, and glaring eyes that could shoot daggers. She was so infuriated that I could've got first-degree burns just from the heat radiating off of her. I silently stood there watching her, not even wanting to make a move out of fear that she'd unleash all that anger on me. I expected her to completely blow up and go on a rampage just from the expression on her face alone. But to my surprise, Izzy just broke into tears and started crying. I inched toward her and begun to wrap my arms around her. The second I did she allowed herself to collapse into my arms, sobbing at that point. I'd never seen Izzy so hurt before, so vulnerable. I didn't know what to say so I didn't speak a word, I just stood there comforting her until she finished. Sad to say that that wasn't even the worse incident I saw that involved her dad.