Sylvia shook her head. "Senior year in high school, and Oksana was already becoming a different person. A much different person then she was before. She started failing in school, started losing a lot of weight, started really talking back to us. She started throwing a lot of fits, slamming a lot of doors, going up to her room, threatening to jump off her balcony. Several times. She had informed us that she was transgendered at this point and that her name was Brock, so I thought that that was the root of her drug problems. Still, we tried to help her. We put her in so many treatment facilities, so many of them. We spent a lot of money on these facilities, too. You know, we put her in the ones that cost $70,000 a month and up.”
"Yeah, we put her in this place called the Dunes in the Hamptons. You ever hear about that place?” Harry asked.
"No, tell me about that place."
“It’s $65,000 for the first 30 days, if that tells you anything at all. The people go out there and do yoga, meditation, hiking, they get massage therapy, acupuncture, and the best food that money could buy. Lots of therapy. You know, you go to that place, and you see sports stars, and celebrities, actors, that sort of thing. That's the kind of place this was. She came out, started using again, so we sent her to Passages Malibu. Mel Gibson’s gotten treatment there. David Hasselhoff. Natasha Lyonne. Anyhow, it's the same kind of thing, Passages Malibu. Just as expensive as a Dunes place, and, for our kid, just as useless."
"Now, Harry, you can't blame yourself for Oksana's addiction and I know that you do,” Sylvia said.
“Yes. I do blame myself. I should have been figuring out that she was buying drugs at school,” he said.
"So, she became a drug addict, and you tried to get her into rehab a couple of times. Not just rehab, but extremely expensive rehab. And how did she end up in San Diego?"
“I don't really know the answer to that question,” Harry said. “All I know is that, one day, she was gone. She was gone, and we tried to find her. We sent a private investigator to find her. I mean she was an adult by that time, 25 years old, but she just left her apartment that we bought her in Soho, just left it, furniture and all, everything was left in that place. All her clothes, books, art work, knick-knacks, kitchen stuff, everything. But she was gone. And, I hate to say it, but we haven't spoken with her for the past five years.”
"Has it been that long?" Sylvia said. "How time flies."
"Yeah, it’s has been that long,” Harry said.
I immediately started to wonder about the possibility that it was all a coincidence that Oksana ended up in San Diego, the same city that her identical twin lived in. Maybe I was wrong about the fact that the two hooked up through the sex site, and that they identified each other as being their long-lost sister.
"So you don't know why it is that she ended up in San Diego exactly?"
"No. I have no idea why she decided to end up out there,” Harry said, shaking his head. “I wish that things were different. Obviously. But there's only so much you can do for your kid. You can only guide them along, and hope that they don't screw up along the way. She did, obviously, and now she's addicted to meth and she is somebody I don't know anymore.” He took a deep breath. "Have either of you seen her now?” he asked anxiously, looking at Regina and me.
Regina looked hesitant, as if she didn't want to tell him the condition that Brock was in when she met him. She looked at me and then she shook her head. I guess she was going to spare them the details.
"No," I said. "We haven’t been able to track him down, either."
"Well, I guess it's just as well," Harry said. I’d like to know that Oksana is okay, however. Marina, too. Of course. I really hope that you can find some way to get her off of this murder charge. I feel awful about what happened to her. Just awful," Harry said.
“I do too,” I said. “And we’re doing all we can to make sure that Marina doesn’t serve time for this. All we can.”
Harry reached over and grabbed my hand and gripped it hard. There were tears in his eyes. Sylvia’s too.
“Well,” Harry said. “I’m very sorry, but I have some work I have to do in my office. If there’s anything else I can do to help you, don’t hesitate to call, huh? And if you do see Oksana, please tell her that we love her very much. We desperately want her to come home.”
We stayed around and talked some more to Sylvia, while Harry went into his home office. I realized that, after talking with her, and with Harry, that Dr. Weber didn’t just destroy the lives of Oksana and Marina.
He destroyed the Jacobs too.
Regina and I spent the rest of the weekend just sightseeing in New York City. Doing all the things that tourists do. Seeing all the neighborhoods, going to Broadway shows, going up in the Statue of Liberty, all that stuff. I was surprised that Regina was so into it. She had always struck me as somebody who would be so above doing the tourist trap stuff. Somebody who would be just way too cool for any of that, but she seemed to have as much fun as a small child would have going to all the different museums, landmarks, and shows.
The Jacobs definitely gave me food for thought. That was definitely what they managed to do.
And they managed to open up a few questions for me too. Why did Oksana end up in San Diego, which just happened to be the city where her identical twin was? She must have known that Marina was out there all along. But if that was the case, why hook up with Marina and her husband through a sex site? That was what really did not make sense.
I was just going to have to find out the missing pieces of the puzzle. Only then would I be able to try this case.
Chapter 29
When I got back to San Diego, the first thing that happened was that Marina called me. She wanted to share some emails that she found on her husband's computer.
"Aidan, I need for you to come over here and take a look at something. Listen, I was on my husband's computer. He has always given me his password, so it wasn't a big deal. I was looking through it, because I just had a feeling that there was something that I needed to know. It was something that my friend told me that I should try to figure out."
“Oh, really?"
"Yes."
I went to her house and looked at what she had to show me. And, just like that, I had an idea about exactly who did this.
And exactly why this person did this.
I also knew that I was going to have to do one thing.
I was going to have to call a hearing, and withdraw the insanity plea.
I finally had the answers I was looking for.
I finally had a good lead that told me that my client did not kill her husband.
Chapter 30
I called the hearing to withdraw her insanity plea the next Monday. "Counselor, I understand you might have some evidence that has led you to believe that your client did not kill her husband?" the judge asked me when I went in there to tell her what I was going to do.
"Yeah. You might say that. However, I need to get permission from this court to subpoena some records from the victim’s place of business."
The prosecutor, Jenna, was not keen on that.
"I know what records Mr. Collins wants to subpoena, and I don't agree with that at all. I think he's going on a fishing expedition, so I'm going to have to object to that,” she said.
"Oh, I don't think you can object. You’re going to want to see the emails that I have printed out from my client’s computer. Trust me, issuing a subpoena to the Pegasus company is going to be extremely important in this case."
I handed over the emails to the judge, and she looked at them. "And you think that there are going to be other emails on the company server?" the judge asked, with curiosity.
"Yes. I do believe so. This is just one email Lawrence had on his personal server. I don't even know why it was on his personal server, sent through his personal e-mail, but I would imagine that there are probably some more official emails that the company has on their company server. And I would like to subpoena them."
The judge nodded
her head. "I'll allow it. I’ll go ahead and sign off on the subpoena.” She looked over at Jenna. “I know that you object to this. Your objection is noted, but, I’ll admit, if Mr. Collins can produce other emails that are along the same lines as this one, they’re going to be highly relevant to the case. Good work, Mr. Collins."
When I got outside the court house, Jenna caught up with me. “Just what do you think you're doing, slandering the name of a good man?"
I snorted. "Good man. You don't know the half of it. You'll find out, at any rate, in the future, just how not good that man is.”
I will felt a little sorry for her. She was about to have her ass handed to her. By someone on his very first at-bat.
That was going to have to hurt.
Chapter 31
January 15 – the first day of trial
I was ready for my first day of trial, as ready as I could ever be. George bowed out of being my second-chair because James told me that I didn't really need one, and George had plenty of his own cases that he needed to worry about.
"I think you're ready for this,” James said. He had reviewed the case with me, and I went over the evidence that I managed to accumulate in this case. He was impressed. “It’s your first time out, and I think that you’re good to go.”
I was happy that I was reasonably certain that I could figure out exactly what had happened to this poor guy. I felt that I could show the jury that my client didn’t do it. Because, really, when it came right down to it, Marina didn’t have a motive to have killed him. Yes, the prosecutor’s office was going to show that Marina did have a motive, which was that she hated him. And, to that end, Jenna did have quite a few witnesses lined up who would be able to testify about just how much she hated her husband. But, at the same time, I thought that my client’s shitty words to her husband really didn’t show motive to have killed him.
Marina didn’t have motive to kill him. But somebody else clearly did.
Over these past few months, I learned that Lawrence actually was not a bad guy. In fact, he was a pretty good guy. I kind of assumed, after I found out about Dr. Weber, that Lawrence was probably a bad guy who was in on all of it. But I realized that he really wasn't.
I was willing and eager to make sure that I nailed the culprit to the wall. I wanted to make him squirm.
I got to the courthouse, and Marina was already there. She was waiting for me outside the courthouse steps. The sun was shining on her hair, and she was dressed in a creamy white dress, with a blue and purple scarf around her neck. She looked almost like a lady.
“I know that you’re not supposed to wear white after Labor Day,” Marina said, “but I don’t think that applies in Southern California, do you?” She looked genuinely worried that she was dressed inappropriately, and I had to have a tiny chuckle about it.
“You’re fine,” I said. “You look fantastic, to tell you the truth.”
She nodded her head, looking unsure about it. “I feel sick,” she said.
“Don’t worry, I got this.”
“I know you do, but what are people going to say about me on the stand?”
“Well, it won’t be good,” I said. “You’re going to be made out to be crazier than a hatter. Just be ready for it.”
I had prepared her by telling her what witnesses were going to be on the stand, and I had interviewed them, and found out that they had a lot to say. None of it good. Marina didn’t seem surprised about the prosecutor’s witnesses, of course. She knew what she did. She knew how she acted. When I told her about the state’s witnesses, she seemed resigned.
Marina had actually started acting somewhat normal. I was still having problems with her, of course. She was still just as changeable as she'd ever had been. One second she was hot, the next second she was cool. But at least, once things started to settle down, she was not trying to get me to try her case in multiple ways anymore. She was no longer calling me every other day to say that she would be like to plead guilty, and then call the next day to ask me to plead her insane, and then back again.
She was no longer trying to direct traffic with this case, so that was a good thing.
I also found out that the reason why she decided that she was not going to try to imagine a love relationship between the two of us anymore was because she met somebody. It was actually a woman. She had fallen in love with a woman by the name of Amber Hightower. I had to say, I felt a bit sorry for Amber. I met her and she seemed like a nice, normal person. But she grounded Marina, as much as Marina could be grounded, so I thought that maybe it could work.
Then again, Marina was Marina, so I didn’t have too many high hopes.
But Marina did have high hopes. “For the first time, I’ve found somebody who might make me truly happy,” Marina said to me. "I'm sorry for what I was saying to you earlier, about you and I getting together. I hate to break your heart like that. I know that you probably really wanted us to have a relationship. But, the heart wants what it wants, and my heart wants Amber."
I took a deep breath when she said, and tried to suppress the hysterical laughter that was threatening to bubble up. She really did seem sincere when she was trying to “break it to me” that she and I couldn’t be together, and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
“Um, I’m sad about that, but I understand,” I said.
She nodded her head and then proceeded to show me her phone. There were pictures after pictures of Marina and Amber together. There they were at SeaWorld. There they were at the beach. Marina was sticking her tongue out in front of a building in Balboa Park. Amber was posing in front of a pissed-off looking sea lion that was minding his own business on a big rock by La Jolla Cove. There they were drinking margaritas in Old Town, raising their glasses to the camera with big smiles on their faces. There was Marina grinning at the camera while chimps played in the background.
It all looked so aggressively normal. I wondered how it could possibly be normal, but maybe Marina could control the crazy if she really tried.
All that I knew was that, after Marina met Amber, things went much more smoothly in the case. I could finally focus on it without worrying that she was going to become obsessed that I was her lover and that I better act that way.
As for Regina, things hadn’t gone anywhere. Ever since our trip to New York, she was as good as her word. She rebuffed every overture that I made that was romantic in any way, shape or form.
I got the hint. It just wasn't going to happen for me with Regina. So, I went on dates with other women. We went to beach restaurants and bonfires, walking along the boardwalk, holding hands. A different girl every week, because that was kind of the way it was with me. My heart was with somebody else, and I just couldn't give it away to anybody else. Oh, I tried. I did try. But all I could think about when I was with all my dates, was that I wished that this person was Regina.
I just hoped that my crush that I had on her would go away.
But she worked on the case with me, and she was golden as far as getting the documents and emails I needed to show what I think happened, and piecing them altogether.
I got up to the courtroom, and the judge was already on the bench. Jenna was already there has well, along with her second chair, Arnold Baker.
“You know, it's not too late to go ahead and dismiss this case," I said to Jenna and Arnold.
"Not on your life,” Jenna said. “Listen, I think that you think you know what happened here, but I don't think you really do. Just wait. Wait and see."
I didn’t know quite why Jenna was so adamant that this case be tried, but it gave me a chance to shine.
It gave me a chance to show that I had the evidence that my client was as innocent as a bird.
I just hoped that I could prove it to the jury.
Chapter 32
Jury selection flew by. I knew the kind of people that I wanted on the jury, and, for the most part, I got them. I knew that Marina's story was a tragic one. As was Oksana's. I really wanted to find jurors who
would sympathize with both of them, and I thought that I did a good job of doing just that.
After talking with Oksana, who now was known as Brock, I knew that part of the reason why she became addicted to drugs was because there was always a part of her that felt like it wasn't there.
"I always felt like I was only half a person,” he said to me. “I always felt that there was another part of me that was out there in the world somewhere, and I didn't know how to fill the emptiness. I didn't know where the emptiness was even coming from. My parents, they never told me I had a sister, let alone tell me that I had an identical twin sister. That's the reason why I refuse to talk to them.”
I felt badly for Harry and Sylvia. They weren't bad people at all. They were flawed, deeply flawed. Harry, he was guilty of being a little bit too eager to participate in a study that was clearly unethical. But, as I noted, if it weren't for them, doing what they did, Dr. Weber would find someone else to do with. It was just a matter of who.
Chapter 33
The prosecutor had a whole host of people that she was going to be calling. The medical examiner, the cops, plus a lot of people who apparently knew that Marina and her husband had a business relationship.
Through email evidence, I was finally able to find out exactly what was the basis for that relationship. And I finally knew that Lawrence was not a bad guy after all.
After the jury was chosen and they were sat, we were ready to begin. Jenna gave her opening statement, and I personally thought that she had a weak case.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury," Jenna said as she addressed the jury. "This case is really not all that difficult to understand. You have a woman, Marina Vasiliev, who was married to a man who she alternately hated and loved. You see, that is the nature of what happens when you’re married to somebody who has an unstable personality. You will hear evidence from individuals who were friends with the couple. They will tell you that they witnessed violence between the two of them. Violence where Marina verbally assaulted her husband in front of them. These same witnesses will tell you that they heard Ms. Vasiliev, on more than one occasion, threaten to kill her husband. You will hear evidence that Ms. Vasiliev saw her husband as somebody who was in her way. He was somebody who was standing in the way of her finding someone who she could truly love with all her heart. Because one thing is for sure. Ms. Vasiliev did not love her husband. No, it was a business relationship. Even she will tell you that on the stand. She will explain that she was paid by the year to be married to him. And she hated being married to him because, like everybody else in the world, she wanted to be with somebody that she loved, and she did not love him.
By Reason of Insanity Page 16