While Dusty lies in bed, figuring out what is has happened to Martie and Skeet,Koontz proceeds to give the whole thing away in his parallel narrative with Susan.
With Martie gone, Susan is in her apartment all alone. Koontz describes the domestic rituals she uses to fill her time, being all alone and unable to go out. She locks the door, engages the deadbolt, and sets a chair against it. None of this has thwarted her phantom rapist before. She prepares dinner and drinks Merlot, noticing that her alcohol consumption is going up. (Again with alcohol. She already had two beers with lunch, and now she is drinking wine with dinner. Given the stress she is under, I suppose we can understand why she is drinking more. But it just goes to show that Koontz accepts alcohol as a coping mechanism). It also occurs to Susan that her passivity and victimization are out of character for her. Although she congratulates herself on making it out of the house to go to therapy twice a week, it occurs to her that she has been remarkably submissive to Ahriman when normally she does not let anyone tell her what to do. (Another clue, although so close to the big giveaway that it hardly counts).
Her phantom rapist has not been by in three nights, so she knows he will be by tonight. None of her precautions have been able to stop him so far, but then it occurs to her to set up a camcorder and videotape him in the act. She calls Martie to see what Martie thinks, but (as we know), Martie is in the middle of her own crisis and doesn't answer. So she hides the camcorder in her ivy-covered ming plant and gets ready for bed. She used to wear sexy nightgowns, but now she sleeps in a white cotton T-shirt and panties because (she believes) these represent a renunciation of her sexuality, which she has now come to associate with rape and pollution. She eagerly awaits seeing what is happening to her, though with a tiny fear at the back of her mind that her rapist really is a demon who leaves no reflection in the mirror and no image on video, and she sees only herself thrashing around in bed. Then the phone rings. A male voice identifies himself at Ben Marco. And Susan says, "I'm listening."
If I were Dean Koontz editor, I would recommend that he stop right there. He's revealed what everyone has figured out by now, that Susan is under mind control, and that her phantom rapist is getting in simply by commanding her to let him in. The audience may very well also have begun to suspect Dr. Ahriman. After all, since the only men we know of in Susan's life are her estranged husband Eric, Dr. Ahriman and (arguably), Dusty, her best friend's husband, the suspect list is short. And of these, the psychiatrist is by far the most likely to be able to exercise this type of mind control over her. But as yet, the interlude with Skeet is all we know about how, and we certainly don't know what will happen when Susan videotapes him. If I were running the story, then, I would stop here and leave the audience to wonder what happens next.*
Koontz, however, takes a different approach. First her mystery caller leads her through her haiku, just like Skeet's.
The winter storm (The storm is you).
Hid in the bamboo grove (The grove is me).
And quieted away (In quiet I will learn what is wanted).
He then commands her to let him in, just in case you had any doubt how Susan's phantom rapist gets past her locked door, wedged chair, and so forth. Chapter 29 ends without revealing who He is. In Chapter 30, he is revealed to be Dr. Ahriman.
He then gives a little demo for the readers to show how the mind control works, even as Dusty is still figuring it out. As Dusty guessed, she can answer questions only with a request for more information, but always obeys all commands. To demonstrate this for the audience, Ahriman asks her, "Do you know who I am?" "Do I?" "Am I your psychiatrist, Susan?" "Are you?" But when he commands her to tell him who he is, she correctly identifies him as Dr. Ahriman and when commanded to tell him his profession, she knows he is a psychiatrist. Apparently, Dr. Ahriman was able to achieve this level of control by three times drugging her with his own unique blend (how?) and conducting three programming sessions, which give him control over her if he says "Ben Marco," followed by the haiku. The agoraphobia, of course, is also his suggestion. When under Ahriman's control, Susan has access to all her usual knowledge, but no independent volition or emotion. Ahriman can make her do anything (consistent with the laws of physics, of course).
After demonstrating his mind control techniques for the audience, Ahriman then demonstrates how evil he is. Not only does he rape her and subject her to acts so unspeakable that Koontz can only darkly hint at them, he makes her think that her own father is doing these things. He has apparently videotaped their actions before and several times mentions doing it again. Although Susan has no volition, she has access to her own knowledge. Every time Ahriman mentions videotape, her eyes turn to the ming tree. He senses something is wrong, but can't figure out what. We also learn that her seemingly innocuous and rational change of sleep wear (to a white cotton T-shirt and panties) was suggested by Ahriman. At the end of the session, Ahriman tells her to lock up again, but the chair back, go to bed, count to ten, and awake upon ten with no memory of what happened. If she realizes she has been raped, she is to suspect her estranged husband, Eric, but she is forbidden to confront him.
Susan does what he says and, upon awakening, realizes she has been used. She still suspects Eric. She considers confronting him, but thinks no, it is forbidden, and then wonders why she thinks such an odd thing. Then she watches the video and, of course, sees Ahriman committing "a series of depravities" best left to the imagination. The game is up. She calls Martie to tell her, but Martie is in the midst of her own crisis and doesn't answer. Susan says, "It isn't Eric, Martie. It's Ahriman. I've got the bastard on videotape." But she still has agoraphobia and can't face calling the police without Martie present to support her.
Meanwhile, as Ahriman is driving away, he thinks over Susan's odd obsession with the ming tree and realizes she looked at it every time he mentioned videotape. He realizes what happened. So he turns around, drives back, calls her, and re-establishes control. Seeing the videotape and panties, he makes her give them to him. (He doesn't want to touch anything for fear of leaving fingerprints). And then he makes a critical mistake. He asks her (or rather, commands her to tell him) whether she has spoken to anyone about the tape. She truthfully answers no, she she has not actually spoken with Martie. He neglects to ask whether she has told anyone, because by leaving a message, she did actually tell Martie.
He then makes her clean every surface where he could have left fingerprints. He is confident that if any of his fingerprints are found, his friends in high places will obstruct the investigation enough to keep him from being prosecuted. But he will be inconvenienced and might receive bad publicity. This is the first suggestion that Ahriman is not acting alone, but is part of a larger conspiracy.
After cleaning the house, he makes her take a hot bath to wash off and signs of his violation. Then he makes her write a suicide note and cut her wrists. He sticks around to watch her bleed to death. Then he leaves, taking care to put a Kleenex between his hand and the door. He locks up, using a spare key he made her give him.** The only detail he cannot take care of is the security chain.
As I say, knowing what is going on takes a lot of suspense out of the story. Yes, you still wonder whether Dusty will catch on, but no longer are you left as much in the dark as Dusty is, so you no longer wonder with him. Later on, Dusty and Martie will try calling Susan, get no response, and wonder what has happened, since her agoraphobia keeps her from ever going out. Imagine how much greater the suspense would be if you, the reader, did not know either. Imagine if you knew she was setting up the videotape to catch her attacker in the act, but did not know how it turned out. Imagine if she was found dead in an apparent suicide, but you did not know how it happened, and last saw her full of energy and enthusiasm at the prospect of finally catching him. Wouldn't that be much more suspenseful than watching Dusty try to figure out what you already know?
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*I was originally going to say this is what I would recommend for the movie, but actually False Memory does not lend itself well to being a movie. It gives vivid descriptions of terror, but up till now the terror has been entirely internal, with no outward sign of anything out of the ordinary. That works for a novel, but would be impossible to convey on screen.
**This eliminates a potential glitch. Susan has changed locks several times. Ahriman doesn't actually need a key, since he just tells her to let him in. But he needs one to lock up after killing her. Having him take the spare key in the house avoids the question of whether he got his own duplicate every time she changed locks and, if so, how he avoided undue attention.
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