Q: Mr. Rawles, can you tell us when and how you came into possession of the choker you tried to pawn on December twenty-ninth?
A: I took it because I was entitled to it.
Q: When was this, Mr. Rawles?
A: I already told the police officers.
Q: Yes, but this is a formal statement you’re now making, and I wish you’d repeat it all for me.
A: It was December twenty-first.
Q: How did you come into possession of it on that date?
A: I took it from Gregory Craig’s apartment.
Q: Did you steal any other—?
A: I didn’t steal it. I took it as partial payment of a debt.
Q: What debt?
A: The money Gregory Craig owed me.
Q: How much money did he owe you?
A: Half the receipts on Deadly Shades.
Q: Deadly shades, did you say?
A: Yes.
Q: Deadly shades? I’m sorry, what…?
A: You’ve got to be kidding.
Q: No, I’m not. What do you mean by deadly shades?
A: It’s a book. Gregory Craig was a writer.
Q: Oh, I see. And you took the choker from his apartment because you felt he owed you fifty percent…
A: By contract.
Q: You had a contract with Mr. Craig?
A: I did. Fifty percent of the receipts on the book. In black and white and signed by both of us.
Q: I see. And where is that contract now?
A: I don’t know. That’s why I went up there. To get a copy of it.
Q: We’re talking now about December twenty-first, are we?
A: Yes.
Q: Which is when you went to see Mr. Craig to get a copy of the contract.
A: Yes. My copy got lost in a fire. I used to live on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. I had a fire in my apartment, and the contract went up with everything else.
Q: So…if I understand this…After the fire, there was only Mr. Craig’s copy of the contract.
A: Yes. Which is why I went up there. To see if I could get it.
Q: What time did you get there, Mr. Rawles?
A: At about five o’clock.
Q: We are referring now to 781 Jackson Avenue, are we?
A: Yes. Craig’s apartment.
Q: And you got there at five o’clock on the evening of December twenty-first.
A: Yes.
Q: What did you do when you got there?
A: I told the security guard I was Daniel Corbett. I knew Corbett had been the editor on the book. I read a story about them in People magazine.
Q: Why did you use a false name?
A: Because I knew Craig wouldn’t let me up otherwise. I’d written letters to him, I’d tried calling him. He never answered my letters, and he used to hang up when I called. Finally, he changed his phone number. That’s why I came down to the city. To talk to him personally. To demand my share of the money.
Q: What happened when you went upstairs?
A: I rang the doorbell, and Craig looked out at me through the peephole. I told him I didn’t want any trouble, I just wanted to talk to him.
Q: Did he open the door for you?
A: Yes, but only because I told him I was going to go see the district attorney if he wouldn’t talk to me.
Q: We are referring now to Apartment 304, are we?
A: Yes, I guess so. I don’t remember what apartment it was. The security guard told me, and I went up, but I don’t remember now what the number was.
Q: What happened after you entered the apartment?
A: We sat down and talked.
Q: What about?
A: The money he owed me. He knew I’d had that fire, I was stupid enough to write to him afterward and ask him for a copy of the contract.
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.