Ghosts

Q: You talked about the money…

A: Yes. By my calculations, he owed me something like eight hundred thousand dollars. I was supposed to get half of everything, you see. The royalties on the hardcover edition alone came to something like four hundred thousand dollars. The paperback rights sold for a million and a half, and the author’s share of that was seven hundred and fifty thousand. His publishers got ten percent on the movie sale, but that still left him with four hundred and fifty thousand. You add that up, it comes to a million six, and half of that is eight hundred thousand. He never gave me a nickel.

Q: Did you ask him for the money?

A: When do you mean?

Q: When you were there talking with him.

A: Of course I asked him for the money. That’s why I was there. To demand the money. To tell him that if he didn’t pay me every cent, I would go to the district attorney.

Q: What was his reaction to that?

A: He told me to sit down and relax. He asked me if I’d like a drink.

Q: Did you accept a drink?

A: I did.

Q: Did he have a drink, too?

A: He had two or three of them.

Q: And you?

A: The same. Two or three.

Q: What happened then?

A: He told me I could go to the district attorney if I liked, but it wouldn’t do me any good. My copy of the contract had been lost in the fire, and he’d destroyed his copy, so now there was no record of the transaction. He said I didn’t have a leg to stand on. He said if I felt I had any cause for legal action, I should go to his publishers instead, and they’d laugh in my face. Those were his exact words. Laugh in my face.

Q: Why hadn’t you gone to his publishers before then?

A: Because I knew he was right. I didn’t have the contract; I didn’t even have the tapes. Why would they have believed me?

Q: What tapes are you referring to, Mr. Rawles?

A: I put it all down on tape for him. All my experiences in the house up there in Hampstead. We got to talking about it one day in a bar, and he said he found it all very interesting, and told me he was a writer, and then asked if I’d put it all on tape for him. We taped it in the house he was renting that summer—but only after he’d proposed his deal. Fifty-fifty. He’d get the book sold, and he’d give me fifty percent of what it earned. I told him no, I wanted my name on the book, too, I wanted to share the byline. I figured that would help me. I’m an actor. I figured my name on the book would help me get parts later on.

Q: Did he agree to putting your name on the book?

A: No. He told me he would never be able to sell it with a split byline on it. So I said okay. I figured fifty percent of the profits would carry me a long way.

Q: And this is what was in the contract?

A: Yes, in black and white. He wrote the contract himself, and we both signed it. A simple letter agreement, but binding.

Q: Did an attorney check it for you?

A: No, I couldn’t afford an attorney. I’m an actor.

Q: All right, Mr. Rawles, on the evening of December twenty-first, sometime after five o’clock while you and Mr. Craig were drinking together—

A: Yes.

Q: —he told you that going to the district attorney would do you no good.

A: That’s right.

Q: What happened then?

A: I took out the knife.

Q: What knife?

A: A knife.

Q: Yes, what knife?

A: I had it in my dispatch case. I brought it down from Boston.

Q: Why?

A: Just in case.

Q: Just in case of what?

A: In case I had to scare him or anything. This man hadn’t answered any of my letters, he used to hang up the phone. I thought maybe I’d have to scare him into giving me my share of the money.

Q: And is that why you took the knife out of the dispatch case? To scare him?

A: Yes.

Q: What happened then?

A: I forced him into the bedroom.

Q: And then?

A: He tried to get the knife from me.

Q: Yes?

A: So I stabbed him.

Q: You killed him because he tried to—

A: No, he wasn’t dead. I rolled him over and tied his hands behind him with a coat hanger. Then I began searching the place. I believed what he’d said about having destroyed his copy of the contract, but I thought maybe he still had the tapes hidden someplace in the apartment. The tapes with my voice on them. The tapes with me telling the story. They would have been proof, you see. So I began looking for them.

Q: Did you find them?

A: No.

Q: What did you do then?

A: I stabbed him again.

Q: Why?

A: Because I was angry. He’d stolen my story, and he hadn’t paid me for it.

Q: Was he dead when you left the apartment?

A: I didn’t know if he was dead or not. When I read the paper later, it said he’d been killed.

Q: The Coroner’s report states that Mr. Craig was stabbed nineteen times.

A: I don’t know how many times I stabbed him. I was angry.

Q: But you didn’t know he was dead. You stabbed him nineteen times—

A: I told you I don’t know how many times.

Q: —yet you didn’t know he was dead.

A: That’s right, I didn’t.

Q: What’d you do then?

A: I took everything I could find. As partial payment of the debt. And then I washed the glasses we’d been drinking from, and I left the apartment.

Q: Why’d you wash the glasses?

A: Fingerprints. Don’t you think I know about fingerprints? Everybody knows about fingerprints.

Q: What happened when you left the apartment?

A: A woman saw me. I got through the lobby okay, but then this woman saw me on the street. I had blood on my clothes, I was running from the building, and she looked at me funny. I had the knife under my coat. I…I just took it out and stabbed her.

Q: Was this Marian Esposito?

A: I didn’t know who she was at the time.

Q: When did you learn who she was?

A: There was something in the newspaper. I figured it had to be her.

Q: Mr. Rawles, did you kill Daniel Corbett?

A: Yes.

Q: Why?

A: Because afterwards…you see, afterwards when I began thinking about it…well, I knew Corbett was his editor, and I’d given his name to the security guard, so I thought…what I thought was maybe there was some chance Corbett had heard the tapes. Maybe there was a possibility he knew this was really my story. And if that was the case, then maybe he’d tell the police about me, tell them Jack Rawles had a…well…a grudge against Craig and they’d come looking for me. So I went to see him.

Q: With the object of killing him.

A: Well…just to make sure.

Q: Make sure of what?

A: That he wouldn’t tell anyone about a possible connection between me and Craig. I had a hard time finding him. He isn’t listed in the telephone book, I didn’t know where he lived. So finally, I went to Harlow House and waited for him to come out after work…

Q: How did you know what he looked like?

A: There was a picture of him and Craig in People magazine. I knew what he looked like. I followed him home, and then I…I guess I killed him.

Q: And did you also try to kill Denise Scott?

A: I don’t know anyone named Denise Scott.

Q: Hillary Scott?

A: Hillary, yes.

Q: You tried to kill her?

A: Yes.

Q: Why?

A: For the same reason. I thought Craig might have mentioned me to her. I knew they were living together, she answered the phone sometimes when I called. I followed her from the apartment the day after I…the day after I killed Craig. She was there with these two police officers, I saw them coming out of the apartment together. She had another apartment in Stewart City, the name Scott was on the mailbox. I thought she might be dangerous, you see. I didn’t want anyone else to know about me. There was someone else who…

Q: Yes?

A: No, never mind.