Maison Blanche Revisited

Chapter 10: Double Feature

FOR WHAT SEEMED the thousandth time, Roman glanced impatiently from his watch to the stately old wardrobe, its once beautiful mahogany now scorched and pitted over the last half-hour by a glittering shower of sparks from an acetylene torch. Fortunately, none of those sparks had had a chance to ignite a fire. The wardrobe's interior panels and the floor around it had been thoroughly doused with water before the welder began his work, and a policeman with an extinguisher stood by just in case. For his part, Roman studied the sparks with ambivalent feelings. The entire house reeked of evil, and if he didn't need the information contained behind those scorched walls so badly he would have said, "The hell with it. Let the damned place burn to the ground." That wasn't going to happen though, and right now, all he wanted was to get inside that steel-encased room as soon as possible so he could find some clue to Marlena's whereabouts.

And it looked as though he was finally going to get his wish. The fiery cascade suddenly ended and a muffled metallic bang reached his ears. The welder emerged from his cramped workspace, raising his helmet from his sweating face, and pointed to a dark, man-sized hole in the steel slab backing the wardrobe. "There's your door. Watch out for the edges. They're still hot."

"Thanks," Roman said gratefully, then he turned to the teams of high-ranking investigators crowded into the room behind him. They had all been searched, and now everyone, himself included, was pulling on thin latex gloves. Not so much to keep from destroying evidence, but to make sure their fingerprints didn't appear in the heretofore sealed room. Anyone whose prints were found in that room would immediately be suspected of working with DiMera, and nobody in their right mind wanted that. It would be the death-knell for any law enforcement career, no matter how exalted. "Everybody ready?" he asked.

There was a flurry of assenting nods and vocalizations, and Roman caught his brother's eye. Bo, paired with U.S. Attorney Susan Belchek, nodded grimly and finished pulling his own gloves in place. Lastly, Roman looked to Franklin, his partner in the first stage of this oh so crucial investigation. Franklin, too, nodded, and Roman said tautly, "All right, let's do it."

Feeling a little like Columbus setting forth into the unknown, Roman stepped up into the wardrobe and shined a flashlight through the opening cut by the welder. The dim stream of light showed a small landing and three steps leading down, with the steel slab of the door partially covering the bottom one. Carefully avoiding the hot edges of the hole as advised, he thrust his head and shoulders further into the darkness and angled the flashlight back toward the wall on either side of the doorway. Just to the right, he spotted what had to be a light switch and reached around to flip it up. As light flooded the room, his heart started to pound like a jackhammer. Pay dirt!

The room was large, at least twice as big as the bedroom behind him. It was crammed with rows of filing cabinets, computer hardware, TV monitors,VCRs, communications equipment, and shelf upon shelf of video and audio tape. In all his years of dealing with DiMera he'd never seen anything like it, and realized in a sudden rush of intuition that this was the heart of Stefano's empire...the nerve center of his entire criminal organization. It was everything he had hoped to find and more than he could have dreamed of. Surely, surely, there would be something in here to lead him to Marlena.

So overwhelmed that he was almost in a daze, he turned off the flashlight and passed it back to Franklin. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of man-hours ahead to process the contents of this room, and he didn't want to accidentally leave something behind that would waste any of that valuable time later. Finally unencumbered, he took a deep breath and stepped across the steel threshold into Stefano's lair. As he walked down the few steps from the landing and reached out with his foot to push aside the metal slab blocking the last one, he heard a muttered "Wow!" from behind him and turned his head to see Franklin emerging from the doorway. The young trooper gave him a triumphant grin, then started to pan across the room with a camcorder, his initial assignment to make a permanent visual record of the room before anything was disturbed.

Returning his attention to the heavy slab on the bottom stair, Roman gave it several hard pushes with his foot and it finally slid the rest of the way to the floor, landing with a dull thud. He then began to make his way around the room, Franklin following close on his heels with the camcorder. Back by the entrance, a pair of guards (one a state trooper, the other from the FBI) had taken their places on the landing, their orders to keep everyone else out until this initial walk-through was finished and the room and it contents had been captured on film. To the investigators on the opposite side of the wardrobe, so eager to get their hands on Stefano's records, the wait seemed like an eternity, but in actuality was only a few minutes. At last, at a signal from Roman, the guards moved to the foot of the stairs and the others streamed through the portal, murmurs of excitement filling the air as the breadth of the find became apparent.

Roman waited a moment for everyone to calm down, then addressed the crowd. "It looks like we've got our work cut out for us, ladies and gentlemen. Franklin and I will start on the videos. I want to see if DiMera made any tapes of my wife and my brother. The rest of you know what to do. Happy digging, everyone." He watched as the group broke into teams, each with its own specialty. Three teams made for the filing cabinets, each staking out one third of the long rows of metal drawers. Two more teams brought out fingerprint equipment and began the arduous task of dusting the room, while another team sought out the computers and communications equipment. That left Roman and Franklin, and Bo and Susan Belchek. "Let's see what's on those tapes," Roman said with high anticipation.

The four moved to examine the videos lining the walls of the room on a very ingenious shelf system. Each set of shelves was ten rows high (each shelf just high enough to hold a standing VHS videotape) and approximately two feet deep. The ingenious part was that the two foot depth was actually made up of five narrow sections of shelves that folded back on each other on hinges. The initial shelf unit was bolted to the wall, and the four sections attached to it were mounted on sturdy casters, with a clear acrylic panel covering the section facing the room. Each narrow shelf held twenty videos, with each section of ten shelves holding two hundred, and each set of five sections holding one thousand. There were twenty-five sets of shelves mounted to the walls, seventeen of which were full. The eighteenth was partially filled, four were empty, and the last three contained audio tapes, with the height of the shelves reduced to just accommodate a standard audio cassette laying on it's side. With each shelf holding thirty audiotapes, at thirty shelves per section, there was room in the three sets of audio shelving to hold approximately thirteen thousand standard cassettes, and an uncountable number of mini-cassettes.

After totaling up the numbers, the task ahead of them was daunting: seventeen thousand video tapes and thirteen thousand audio tapes. At first it seemed impossible to even know where to begin, but then a careful examination of the labels on the video boxes revealed numbers which could only be dates, followed by some sort of letter/number code. Reasoning that the partially filled set of shelves would hold the latest tapes, Roman rushed over, and sure enough, the last video on the shelf was labeled 06-19-94 JB3. Nine days ago.

Grabbing the tape, he hurried to insert it into one of the three VCRs stacked next to a television. After a few moments of experimentation to match the VCR to the correct channel, a picture appeared on the screen, and he heard Susan Belchek and Bo gasp in horror. He and Franklin were stoic, but only because they had already seen a similar picture live and in person. It was John, battered and bloody in his dungeon. He moved feebly on his filthy cot, reaching down with chained hands to lift a metal cup from the floor, but when the cup reached his lips, he dropped it with a moan of anguish. There was no splash as it hit the floor...the cup was empty.

Roman gritted his teeth at what followed. John looked directly into the camera, his blue eyes dull with pain, fever and bewilderment. "Please," he begged in a rusty childlike voice, "can I have my water? You said I could have my water if I was good. I was real good. You know I was. Please give me my water," he pleaded. "Please? I was good... I was good... I was good..." His voice trailed off into a whisper and he fell back against his grimy pillow, his body shaking in uncontrollable sobs, but no tears came from his eyes. They had all dried up.

"Oh, my God," Susan moaned tremulously, tears a-plenty flowing down her own cheeks as if to make up for the ones John could not produce. "I had no idea, Roman. How could they do that to him? How could anyone do that to another human being?"

Roman had no answer for her. He felt like he wanted to cry himself. He pressed the fast forward button, speeding through the entire six-hour tape. All it showed was John, alone in his cell. He alternated between dozing fitfully and waking up to beg for water. None ever came. The tape ended with John staring silently at the camera, his fevered, tortured mind finally grasping that further pleas were useless.

As the image on the TV screen faded away and turned to snow, Roman set the tape to rewind, grateful he didn't have to look at John's staring eyes anymore. He knew it was only his imagination, but he couldn't shake the feeling they'd been looking right into his soul. They had seemed to reproach him, asking wordlessly: Why didn't you come sooner, Roman? Why didn't you save us?

I'm sorry, John, he replied silently. I'm so sorry. Forgive me. I'll make it up to you. I promise.

"I wonder if he ever got any water," Bo mused somberly.

The question pulled Roman out of his self-absorption. "I think he must have," he replied quietly. "That tape was made nine days ago. At least seven days before we found him. He couldn't have survived for that whole time without water. Maybe his friend Henri was able to smuggle some to him before they left. I hope so anyway."

The tape continued to rewind as Roman picked up the box and looked at the coded label. 06-19-94 JB3. '06-19-94' was the date. 'JB' obviously stood for 'John Black'. What did the '3' mean? On a hunch, he returned to the shelf where he had gotten the tape and checked the next box in line. His hunch was correct. The label read 06-19-94 JB2, and the next one 06-19-94 JB1. And the four boxes before that read 06-18-94 JB1 through 06-18-94 JB4. Stefano had been taping John round the clock, using four, six-hour videos per day. Had he also been taping Marlena? Roman was positive he had. He motioned for the others to join him and explained the significance of the codes. "We're looking for something dated within the last two weeks," he concluded, "and probably coded 'ME' for Marlena Evans, or 'MEB' for Marlena Evans Brady. Or maybe just 'M'." He unfolded the partially filled shelves out into the room, the end section butting up against a filing cabinet. "Let's start looking."

There was nothing labeled 'M' (or any variation thereof) on the first set of shelves they examined: everything on those had the 'JB' code. The next set of shelves was a different story, however; these all read 'M' or 'JB+M'. The last video in the 'M' series was 06-19-94 M2. Roman pulled it and ran for the VCR.

Some six hours later, Roman was no closer to discovering Marlena's whereabouts, but he was newly filled with an all-consuming rage directed at Stefano DiMera. The tape of John had been bad enough, but watching Marlena's ordeal was even worse for him, even though physically she was in excellent condition. In her case, it was her mind and emotions that were being battered.

He had made himself watch every minute of the tape, though at times he had thought he would be physically ill, having to force the gorge back down his throat so he wouldn't vomit. Except for trips to the bathroom, the cameras followed Marlena everywhere she went, with the signals all leading back to one VCR. Roman wasn't sure how it was done, but the system must have been very sophisticated.

The first two hours of the tape showed Marlena asleep in bed. (Roman recognized the room: it was the one he had used the night of the hurricane.) She slept poorly--tossing and turning, muttering to herself, sometimes crying out in the midst of what must have been a dreadful nightmare. It was quite apparent that even in sleep her desperate situation preyed on her mind. When she finally awoke, she lay there for several minutes, staring at the camera that followed her every move. She obviously knew it was there. Trying to preserve some semblance of privacy, she snaked one arm from beneath the covers and grabbed a silky peignoir laying at the foot of the bed. Pulling it under the blankets with her, she wriggled into it. Moments later there was knock at the door and she quietly called, "Come in," her voice colorless and apathetic.

A slender African-American woman with short platinum blonde hair entered the room carrying a breakfast tray. Along with the food on the tray was a spray of lavender lilacs in a small vase. (Roman growled deep in his throat when he saw that. Lilacs were Marlena's favorite flower.) Marlena sat up in bed and the woman laid the tray across her lap, plumped up the pillows behind her, then left the room. Seeing what happened next was the first time Roman almost threw up. Stefano DiMera came through the door carrying another tray of food. He set it on a table by Marlena's bed and pulled up a chair. Before sitting down, he leaned over, caught Marlena's chin, and kissed her on the lips. He held her that way for a long time. She didn't struggle, but when he finally let her go, Roman could see tears streaming down her cheeks. Stefano had to have seen them too, and must have know he was the cause, but he seemed unaffected. Instead, he sat down and gazed at her possessively. "Good morning, my Queen," he whispered throatily, his lust for her appallingly clear. "You look so beautiful today. Just as you always do. And you belong to me," he gloated lasciviously. "Only to me." Reaching out a fat be-ringed hand, he caught the edge of the peignoir, slipping it down to bare her shoulder, and began to caress her naked skin, ignoring her shudders. "I adore you, my Queen of the Night," he murmured, stroking her neck. "Your magnificent beauty puts the moon and the stars to shame, and the sun pales in your presence. I know you will return my love some day, my sweet. Once we have left this place, your memories of Roman and John will fade, and you will finally realize there is only one man in the world who can love you as you deserve. That day will be the happiest day of my life...the day you say, 'I love you, Stefano.' Then we will make glorious love, and you will forget every other man you have ever known. Let it be soon, my exquisite Marlena, my Queen. I long to bury myself in your sweetness, to join with you in the ultimate passion. Let it be soon." Then he finally removed his hand and started to eat his breakfast with hearty gusto, while Marlena, tears dripping from her chin, silently pulled her clothing back into place and listlessly reached for a glass of juice.

The dreadful breakfast seemed to stretch on forever. Stefano stayed in Marlena's room for nearly an hour, watching her pick at her food (she clearly had no appetite), taunting her with Roman's supposed abandonment while implying that he was already involved with another woman, and issuing thinly veiled threats that John's continuing survival depended upon her cooperation. When Stefano finally left, after forcing another kiss on her, Marlena leaped from the bed and rushed to the bathroom, the sound of her vomiting echoing horribly through the empty bedroom.

The rest of the tape continued in the same vein. Marlena dressed in the bathroom, away from the prying eye of the camera, and emerged wearing a long white pleated skirt and a white blouse with a tie. The camera followed her downstairs to the study, where she tried to lose herself in a book, but she wasn't alone for long. Stefano joined her there a few minutes later, and the scene from the bedroom repeated itself. DiMera kissed her and fondled her, telling her how much he loved her and that one day she would return his love, all the while repeating his taunts and threats about Roman and John. As at breakfast, Marlena's only protest was silent tears, and when he left, she again rushed for the bathroom. It happened over and over: Marlena would try to hide in some quiet spot for a few minutes, but Stefano always found her, and after each encounter, she would hurry off to be sick. The tape ended with a servant calling her to lunch, and Marlena walking down the hall with a look a hopelessness on her face.

Long after Marlena's image disappeared, Roman sat hunched over the table with his head in his hands. He wasn't only angry at DiMera, but at himself. He couldn't forget that look on her face...or her weary eyes. Those eyes used to have so much sparkle, especially when she smiled. But now they were almost dead. And just like John's, they had bored into his soul, reproaching him for his negligence, begging to know why he hadn't come to save her. He knew it was only a trick of his own mind, prompted by a guilty conscience, but that didn't make the feelings go away. And he also knew those feelings would haunt him forever, unless he found her.

Someone touched his shoulder and he jerked his head up violently, his hand momentarily reaching for his gun. He backed off when he saw who it was. "Sorry, bro," his little brother said apologetically. He and Susan had gone to dinner awhile ago, leaving Roman and Franklin to finish viewing the tape. "I didn't mean to startle you. I take you didn't find anything useful on the rest of it?" he nodded toward the VCR, where Franklin was ejecting the tape and placing it back in its box.

"Just more of the same," Roman grated furiously. "He had his hands all over her, Bo. It was awful. She had to sit there and let him paw her over and over again, or he would have had John killed. I wanted to tear him apart. If we ever find him, that's exactly what I'm going to do."

"You know you shouldn't say things like that in the presence of a prosecutor," Susan said quietly from behind him, "but in this case, you're forgiven. I agree with you completely: the world would be a much better place without Stefano DiMera. I hope I get a chance to meet your wife some day, Roman. I think she's a very brave woman."

"She's an extraordinary woman," Roman said with subdued pride. "She's smart, she's funny, she's a wonderful mother, and she's braver than any man I ever met. The only things she can't do," he added with a small chuckle, "are cook and ski. She could've had any man she wanted, and she chose me. I was such a fool...I had the whole world in my hands and I threw it away. I only hope she can forgive me and give me another chance. And even if she can't--even if she doesn't come back to me--I want to her to have all the happiness in the world, even if it's with John."

Bo gripped his shoulder comfortingly. "We'll find her, bro...I know we will. And she'll give you that second chance. Remember what John said in his letters? How she talked about you all the time? That she still loved you and needed you? John knew what he was talking about, and when we find Marlena, you'll know it too."

"Thanks," Roman said gratefully. "That gives me something to hope for."

"Why don't you and Franklin go have some dinner," Bo urged. "Susan and I can start on the next tape. We'll let you know if we find anything."

"There is no 'next tape'," Roman told him in discouragement. "This was the last one about Marlena. It didn't say anything about where he was taking her; it didn't even mention they were leaving soon."

"It can't be the last one," Bo objected. "The last tape for John was the third one dated June 19th. The tape we just saw was only the second one for Marlena for that date. There should be one more."

Roman felt like he was just coming out of a stupor. "You're right," he said excitedly. "Let's check the shelves again. Maybe the last one got misfiled." The search of the shelves proved fruitless, however, and they were right back where they started.

"Maybe it's in one of the VCRs," Franklin suggested. "We've only used the top one so far." They checked the other two units and still came up empty.

Roman contemplated the other hi-tech equipment laid out on the fifteen foot counter where the three VCRs and their TV monitor resided. There were two computer stations with attendant hardware and CD ROM towers, and what looked liked a highly sophisticated stereo unit with multiple slots for various audio formats. On closer examination, he also realized two of the side by side slots were the right size for standard VHS videotape. He turned to Luis Flores of the ISA, who was working at one of the nearby computer stations. "Could you help me a minute, Luis?"

"Sure. What do you need, Roman?"

"These are for videotapes aren't they?" He pointed to the two slots in the stereo. "I've never seen a VCR setup like that before."

"I'm not surprised," Flores answered. "They are for videos, but not for viewing. They're for high speed video duplication."

Roman had another one of his sudden hunches and tried to calm his pounding heart. "Would you see if there's anything in them?" he asked quietly. "I can't figure out which buttons to push."

"No problem." Flores leaned over and hit a button below the slot on the left. Nothing. He then hit a button below the right hand slot. The machine whirred to life and a black tape with no labeling emerged. Roman carefully extracted it and held it as gently as if it were a Ming vase.

"Thanks," he told Flores, making sure his voice didn't tremble.

"Glad to help," the ISA Deputy Chief responded. He went back to his computer while Roman hurried to the other end of the counter and placed the tape in the VCR. His eyes, and those of his three companions, were glued to the TV screen as he hit the play button. They all breathed sighs of relief as Marlena appeared, walking down the same hall and wearing the same outfit from where the previous tape ended. They had tape 06-19-94 M3 all right... and God willing, by the time they reached the end, they would also have Marlena 's location.

to be continued...

© 1998 by Ruth Stout - All Rights Reserved

Background Image Courtesy of Proof New Media Inc. at freeimages.com

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