“So, what you're saying is that Brock, because of his drug addiction, he did not look anything like his identical twin."
"Right. Combine that with the fact that he looked like he had taken male hormones along the way, because you know, he looked like a guy and not feminine at all, and, yeah, to say that he looked nothing like his identical twin would be understating the matter. But, that's probably not exactly an abnormal thing."
"It's weird, however, that he somehow was on the list that Christian provided for you. He was somebody who was contacted by them through that sex site. I wonder why that would be."
“You mean, why was he contacted through the sex site, as opposed to contacting her directly? Like sending her emails, and calling her?" Regina asked.
"Yeah. I wonder why that would be."
"Well, maybe that's how they got into contact with each other for the first time. After all, it just showed that they contacted him through the sex site only the one time. You know, maybe Brock had a different picture up, that happens all the time, and they contacted him for a rando encounter. Then he shows up, and obviously, they’d have no interest in that. But I would guess that there was probably some kind of psychic connection between the two of them, and they recognized each other. That makes a lot of sense."
I tapped my fingers on the table in front of me. The flight attendant came around and brought Regina and me some drinks. I got a bourbon and coke, and Regina got a gin and tonic. I picked it up and sipped it, stretching my legs a little bit.
"Yeah. That does make sense. So you think it was just a coincidence that brought them together? They just happened to hook up on the sex site, he gets there and Marina immediately recognized her as being her twin, even though he looked nothing like her, and she is currently a boy.”
"Yeah. That makes a lot of sense."
I thought about that. However, something was not sitting right about that scenario. I didn’t know quite what was wrong. It was just something in my gut.
The plane finally touched down, after about five hours in the air, and Regina and I got an Uber to our hotel room, after going through baggage claim and getting our suitcases. Well, I guess I should say hotel rooms, plural, because I made sure that she was going to feel comfortable about being out in New York with me. I thought that if we had the same room, she would think that I was being presumptuous, and I didn't want that.
We were staying at the Four Seasons, which I knew was a little fancy for her, but I didn't care. I was going to be in New York City, and I was going to be doing it right. Besides, my firm was paying for this trip. I was going to use their expense account in style.
I got to my room, threw down my suitcase, and looked at my watch. It was noon, and I had to go and see the Jacobs at 3 o'clock. So, I took a shower, and Regina went to her room, and, after 20 minutes, the two of us went and got another Uber car to go to have lunch before going to the Jacobs house.
I was slightly nervous about seeing these people. I didn't know why. I just kind of had a feeling that they might have been able to point me in the right direction as to where I needed to go for this case.
I guess I was nervous because I thought that there was a possibility that they would not be any help at all, which would make this trip pointless.
Well, not exactly pointless. I was out here with Regina. Even if she didn't want to have a relationship with me, I still enjoyed being close to her.
Chapter 28
At 3 o'clock, I was in the Upper East side apartment owned by the Jacobs. Sylvia Jacobs was slim and attractive. Early 50s. Black hair, pointed nose, dark eyes. She looked like somebody who probably was a runner, maybe, or someone who played a lot of tennis. She was definitely somebody who had kept in shape over the years.
Harry, on the other hand, was slightly overweight. Paunchy. He had a bald head and he was short, about 5 foot six. He was wearing a yarmulke, it being Saturday, and he greeted the two of us with a hearty smile.
"Come in, come in," he said jovially as Regina and I approached the door to their enormous condo. It was overlooking Central Park, and it was extremely large, about 4000 square feet. I knew what apartments and condos went for on the Upper East side, and I knew that this place was worth millions.
Not that that mattered. Then again, maybe it did.
Sylvia, like her husband, was anxious to talk to us. She led us out to the balcony, and she brought us all out some iced tea and a couple glasses, and some finger food - crackers and a little bit of kosher salami.
She poured a glass of tea for me and one for Regina. I took a bite of cracker and salami. Jacob was sitting across from me, smiling, and I felt more comfortable. It seemed like these people were not going to be hostile, to say the very least.
"I have to say, I was surprised that you were able to track us down,” Harry said. “But, at the same time, I am really anxious to talk about my… son, I guess."
Sylvia nodded her head. "Yes, Oksana is now our son. And his name is Brock, not Oksana." She shook her head, and looked at Regina and me. “Honestly, Harry’s a psychotherapist. You would think that he would have no problem with identifying our kid as a boy now. But you know what they say. Sometimes you can treat other people, but, when it comes to yourself, it's hard."
“Do you know that Brock chose that name because he was such a fan of Barack Obama,” Harry said. “But he spells it B-r-o-c-k. It's like he wanted to honor his hero, but he didn't want to go that far. He didn't want people to think he was weird. Because you know, in America, Brock is kind of a standard boy name. But Barack, that's still kind of exotic. At least it’s different for people who were not from the country of Kenya. I mean whose roots are not in the country of Kenya, not that I'm trying to say that Barack Obama was from Kenya, because of course you know he wasn't."
At that, Sylvia started to laugh. "It happens every time. We start talking about our son, and Harry doesn’t know what to say. He starts babbling about this or that."
Sylvia got up, and came back out with a photo album. “Here, I wanted to show you how Brock looked before everything happened. Before she became a he, and before he, well, we lost him. We lost him, as surely as if he was dead."
She looked sad. I opened up the photo album, and, sure enough, when I looked at the the photos of the young Brock, I saw Marina. Exactly like she must've looked about 15 years ago. It seemed like the photographs stopped at the age of about 20. She had the same red hair, the same bright blue eyes, the same slim body, the exact same face. She was Marina, through and through.
“Were you aware that Oksana had an identical twin when you adopted her?" I asked her.
"Yes," Sylvia said with a sigh. "I did realize that. And so did Harry, didn't you, Harry?”
Harry silently nodded his head. He suddenly did not have a smile on his face. Rather, he looked like he was lost in thought.
"And you were okay with adopting Oksana, and not her identical twin sister?" I asked her.
She looked over at Harry, and Harry motioned to her to be quiet. She nodded her head silently, and I knew that Harry was going to speak.
"Yes, I was aware of the situation. I can't say that I was aware of what happened to Oksana’s identical twin, but I was interested in the twin study that Dr. Weber was doing. You know, I'm a psychotherapist, and such studies have always fascinated me. I figured that it might help me in my practice. Studies on the whole nature versus nurture thing are extremely important, vital even, because as psychotherapists we have to know how much genetics play a part in an individual's psyche, and how much environment does. As you probably know, mental illnesses that are organic in nature, that come from the brain, or the body chemistry, those are treated differently than ones that are not organic in nature. I just felt that the entire study of the twins was important. So, I agreed to allow Oksana to be treated like a lab rat."
"Harry and I had a lot of fights about that," Sylvia said. "I didn’t want to have any part of it. But Harry, he said that he wanted us to have a child, and t
hat was only way he was going to agree to adopt any child. And I wanted a child, desperately. So if that was the only way I was going to get a child was to go along with separating twins, then I was going to do that."
Harry looked like he was going to vomit. His face was just a little green. “I was a lot younger back then,” he said. “I admit, I didn’t think about the ramifications of what I was doing. And if I thought for just two seconds that Marina was just going to be left in an orphanage by herself, I would never have agreed to it. I was simply told that Marina was going to also get a home here in America. That they were going to place her in a home that was not as affluent as ours, but was still a loving home. That's what he told me. That's the only reason I went along with it. I really thought that Marina was also going to get a good home. But what happened, how they deliberately left her in the orphanage, and they deliberately made sure she was not adopted during her formative years, that was beyond the pale."
Now, that was something new. I wasn't aware that the directive was that Marina had to stay in the orphanage for all that time.
"I'm sorry, what were you saying again? You said that Dr. Weber arranged for Marina to stay in the orphanage for all those years?"
Harry took a deep breath. "Yes. That's what I found out. When I saw Marina's picture in the newspaper, after she was arrested for murdering her husband, I knew that she was Oksana's long-lost twin. Obviously. Because she had Oksana's exact face. Not that Oksana looks like that anymore. Of course. As you probably know, Oksana has had her problems over the years. I'll get to that later, about how it is that she went from being my beautiful sweet intelligent daughter to the person that she is now. It's a tragic story, but not as tragic as Marina’s story."
"Okay, so when you saw that Marina was arrested for killing her husband, and you knew that you had found Oksana's long-lost twin, what did you do?" I asked him.
"Well, I read the newspaper article about her, just like anybody else would. And I read, just like everybody else, about her tragic back story. About how she was in a Russian orphanage for all those years, and how she was sexually abused when she was a little girl in the orphanage. How she finally managed to find a loving home at the age of seven, but by then, it was too late. Her personality was already formed by then. The die was cast by that time. And that's true too, you know. A person's formative years, when they’re one, two, three years old and so forth, those are extremely important years for forming a person's personality. When a child is that young and they learn that the world is a scary place, that's the root of many personality disorders. That and the fact that if you don't get the proper amount of love and guidance at a young age, and you fail to bond with an adult when you’re very young, this is also the root of personality disorders. I also read that she had been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder. I don't know where I saw that, but I did see it. And that makes sense to me."
"So how did you find out that the orphanage was directed to keep her there for all those years?"
"Well, I have to say, when I found out the fate of Oksana’s identical twin, I kind of went crazy. The fact that I adopted Oksana, knowing that she had an identical twin out there, had really been nagging at me all these years. I thought it was something that I could live with, but it really wasn't.
But I always tried to comfort myself with thinking that Marina had just as good of a life as we were providing for Oksana. When I found out the truth, I knew that I had to go over to Russia and speak with the people who ran that particular orphanage. I wanted to find out why it was that she was not able to find a home for all those years. Now, I know that the fact that she didn’t find a home for so many years wasn’t uncommon. Because of adoption rules and so forth and how international adoptions are so difficult anyways, I know that there are lots of kids in Eastern Europe, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, so forth, who are in orphanages and not able to find homes. But I wanted to ask the adoption people myself, the people who run orphanages over there in Russia myself, about why it was that Marina was not able to find a home. Because, I'll admit, I kind of had my suspicions."
"Suspicions about what?"
"I have my suspicions about Dr. Weber, and his motivations. I knew that he had lied to me about Marina being placed in a good home, so when I found out that he had lied to me, and she lived for so long in the orphanage, I started to think that maybe he was not such a good man."
Sylvia snorted. "You think? What was your first clue about that, Harry?"
"Sylvia, you know how I feel about all this. You know how devastated I am. So, I really don't need comments from the peanut gallery on this. I beat myself up enough about it."
Sylvia waved her hand dismissively. "Okay, okay. You feel bad about it."
"I do. And that's the reason why I'm anxious to talk to this gentleman, and his researcher. I'm sorry, investigator. I'm anxious to talk to the two of you, because I feel responsible for what happened to Marina. If I just would have not gone along with it. If I just would have insisted to the doctor that I was going to get both girls, or nothing, maybe that murder never would have happened.”
“Don't worry about that, Harry,” Sylvia said. “If you would've insisted that you were going to adopt both girls, the doctor would've just done it with two other identical twins. He was going to do it, no matter what. That's just the kind of person he is. It's disgusting."
"I guess," Harry said. "I guess you're right. If he didn’t do that work with Oksana and Marina, he would've done it with two other people. He was determined that he was going to separate twins, and make sure that one was in a horrible condition, and the other one was in a really good condition. That was the study that he wanted to have, and that's what he did."
"So how did you find out that Marina was supposed to stay there at the orphanage for all those years?"
"Well, what can I say?” Harry said. “That bastard, that Dr. Weber, he paid off the orphanage to make sure that nobody could adopt Marina for seven years. Well, not exactly seven years, but 6 plus years. He wanted to make sure that she spent her entire early childhood at this place. So, when I spoke with the people over there at the orphanage, they told me that that was their instructions. She was not open to be adopted to anybody until she turned 7. Dr. Weber made sure of it."
I bit my lower lip. That guy was truly a monster.
“And you’ve been in touch with Dr. Weber over the years, right?”
“Right. It was a longitudinal study, so we were required to answer questions about Oksana every year. We never told Oksana that she was the topic of a research study, though. We never wanted her to know that there was another little girl around who was her twin. That would have devastated her. I would imagine that the adoptive parents of Marina did much the same.”
"Do you know exactly why it was that he would make sure that she spent her entire early childhood there?"
"Of course. It all makes sense to me now, looking back. Oksana was a beautiful child. Friendly, outgoing, all of that. And I imagine that Marina was as well. I imagine she was the same kind of little child. And, chances were that she probably would have found a home sooner or later. Probably sooner, rather than later. And Dr. Weber just didn't want to take that chance. He didn’t want to take the chance that Marina would have just been in the orphanage for a month or two, because then, Dr. Weber would lose track of her, for one thing. And also, he wouldn't have gotten the data that he wanted to have."
"Well, I guess that probably settles it. That guy, that Dr. Weber, he's truly evil." I thought about how Dr. Weber talked about how he wanted to have a master race, how he was in favor of eugenics and all that. Yes, he was exactly the kind of person who would do something like this.
I wondered if he managed to do a study like that to somebody else. He probably wanted to have several subjects, just like Marina and Oksana. It wouldn't do just to have the two.
“I wonder if he’s had other subjects over the years, subjects put into the same situation?” I said aloud. “After all, just
the study of Marina and Oksana isn’t going to yield anything significant to him. He had to have other people that he was doing this with over the years."
"Yeah, I'm sure that he probably did," Harry said. "Not necessarily from Russia, but probably identical twins from other poor countries that had children in orphanages. I would not be surprised if there are several other twins, or triplets even, who were put in similar situations. He was apparently studying the effects of being completely neglected, abused, and so forth, as opposed to having everything that you ever wanted. And, the irony of it all, of course, is that we lost Oksana anyways. We gave her everything that she needed in life. Sylvia stayed home with her, we gave her all the love that she needed, we gave her tutors for school, and we put her in music lessons. We both spent a lot of quality time with her, reading to her, helping her with homework, taking her to playdates, everything. We made sure that she had a good social life. You know, we really made sure that she was out with other kids, we made sure that we had parties for her, every year. She always invited all her little friends. We did everything for her, and look what happened."
"I guess Dr. Weber experiment failed after all, didn't it?" Sylvia said with a wry smile. She took a sip of her iced tea, and daintily nibbled on some salami and cracker. Her legs were crossed, and she was leaning back in her chair. It looked like she was completely defeated.
For that matter, Harry looked just as defeated. Even more defeated, because he was the one who stirred his entire thing up.
"What happened to her, Oksana?" I asked him. "How did she become addicted to drugs?"
"Well, the irony of it all is, she became addicted to drugs in her private school. Turns out when you got a lot of kids in a school where there's lots of money, there's also lots of drugs. Not every kid gets addicted, however, but, apparently, our Oksana was prone to addiction. I should have researched her parents a little bit better. If I would've, I would've known that she was going to be a problem. Her father, Vladimir, he was a drug addict himself."
By Reason of Insanity Page 15