Get the Truth: Former CIA Officers Teach You How to Persuade Anyone to Tell All (27 page)

Lange:
So you drive the, you came home in the Rolls, and then you got in the Bronco?

Simpson:
In the Bronco ’cause my phone was in the Bronco. And because it’s a Bronco. It’s a Bronco, it’s what I drive, you know. I’d rather drive it than any other car. And, you know, as I was going over there I called her a couple of times, and she wasn’t there, and I left a message, and then I checked my messages, and there were no messages. She wasn’t there, and she may have to leave town. Then I came back and ended up sitting with Kato.

Lange:
Okay. What time was this again that you parked the Bronco?

Simpson:
Eight-something, maybe. He hadn’t done a Jacuzzi, we had … went and got a burger, and I’d come home and kind of leisurely got ready to go. I mean we’d done a few things.

Lange:
You weren’t in a hurry when you came back with the Bronco?

Simpson:
No.

Lange:
The reason I ask you, the car was parked kind of at a funny angle, stuck out in the street.

Simpson:
Well, it’s parked because … I don’t know if it’s a funny angle or what. It’s parked because when I was hustling at the end of the day to get all my stuff, and I was getting my phone and everything off it, when I just pulled it out of the gate there, it’s like, it’s a tight turn.

Lange:
So you had it inside the compound, then?

Simpson:
Yeah.

Lange:
Oh, okay.

Simpson:
I brought it inside the compound to get my stuff out of it, and then I put it out, and I’d run back inside the gate before the gate closed.

Vannatter:
How did you get the injury on your hand?

Simpson:
I don’t know. The first time, when I was in Chicago and all, but at the house I was just running around.

Vannatter:
How did you do it in Chicago?

Simpson:
I broke a glass. One of you guys had just called me, and I was in the bathroom, and I just kind of went bonkers for a little bit.

Lange:
Is that how you cut it?

Simpson:
Mmm, it was cut before, but I think I just opened it again, I’m not sure.

Lange:
Do you recall bleeding at all in your truck, in the Bronco?

Simpson:
I recall bleeding at my house, and then I went to the Bronco. The last thing I did before I left, when I was rushing, was went and got my phone out of the Bronco.

Lange:
Mmm-hmm. Where’s the phone now?

Simpson:
In my bag.

Lange:
You have it?

Simpson:
In that black bag.

Lange:
You brought a bag with you here?

Simpson:
Yeah.

Lange:
Do you recall bleeding at all?

Simpson:
Yeah, I mean, I know I was bleeding, but it was no big deal. I bleed all the time. I play golf and stuff, so there’s always something, nicks and stuff, here and there.

Lange:
So did you do something? When did you put the Band-Aid on it?

Simpson:
Actually, I asked the girl this morning for it.

Lange:
And she got it?

Simpson:
Yeah, ’cause last night with Kato, when I was leaving, he was saying something to me, and I was rushing to get my phone, and I put a little thing on it, and it stopped.

Vannatter:
Do you have the keys to the Bronco?

Simpson:
Yeah.

Vannatter:
Okay. We’ve impounded the Bronco. I don’t know if you know that or not.

Simpson:
No.

Vannatter:
To take a look at it. Other than you, who’s the last person to drive it?

Simpson:
Probably Gigi. When I’m out of town, I don’t know who drives the car, maybe my daughter, maybe Kato.

Vannatter:
The keys are available?

Simpson:
I leave the keys there, you know, when Gigi’s there, because sometimes she needs it, or Gigi was off and wasn’t coming back until today, and I was coming back tonight.

Vannatter:
So you don’t mind if Gigi uses it, or …

Simpson:
This is the only one I can let her use. When she doesn’t have her car, ’cause sometimes her husband takes her car, I let her use the car.

Lange:
When was the last time you were at Nicole’s house?

Simpson:
I don’t go in, I don’t go in her house. I haven’t been in her house in a week, maybe five days. I go to her house a lot. I mean, I’m always dropping the kids off, picking the kids up, fooling around with the dog, you know.

Vannatter:
How does that usually work? Do you drop them at the porch, or do you go in with them?

Simpson:
No, I don’t go in the house.

Vannatter:
Is there a kind of gate out front?

Simpson:
Yeah.

Vannatter:
But you never go inside the house?

Simpson:
Up until five days, six days ago, I haven’t been in the house. Once I started seeing Paula again, I kind of avoid Nicole.

Vannatter:
Is Nicole seeing anybody else that you …

Simpson:
I have no idea. I really have absolutely no idea. I don’t ask her, I don’t know. Her and her girlfriends, they go out, you know, they’ve got some things going on right now with her girlfriends, so I’m assuming something’s happening because one of her girlfriends is having a big problem with her husband because she’s always saying she’s with Nicole until three or four in the morning. She’s not. You know, Nicole tells me she leaves here at one-thirty or two or two-thirty, and the girl doesn’t get home until five, and she only lives a few blocks away.

Vannatter:
Something’s going on, huh?

Lange:
Do you know where they went, the family, for dinner last night?

Simpson:
No. Well, no, I didn’t ask.

Lange:
I just thought maybe there’s a regular place they go.

Simpson:
No. If I was with them, we’d go to Toscano [Toscana]. I mean, not Toscano, Poponi’s [Peppone].

Vannatter:
You haven’t had any problems with her lately, have you, O.J.?

Simpson:
I always have problems with her, you know. Our relationship has been a problem relationship. Probably lately for me, and I say this only because I said it to Ron yesterday at the—Ron Fishman, whose wife is Cora—at the dance recital, when he came up to me and went “Oooh, boy, what’s going on?” And everybody was beefing with everybody, and I said, “Well I’m just glad I’m out of the mix.” You know, because I was like dealing with him and his problems with his wife and Nicole and evidently some new problems that a guy named Christian was having with his girl and was staying at Nicole’s house, and something was going on, but I don’t think it’s pertinent to this.

Vannatter:
Did Nicole have words with you last night?

Simpson:
Pardon me?

Vannatter:
Did Nicole have words with you last night?

Simpson:
No, not at all.

Vannatter:
Did you talk to her last night?

Simpson:
To ask to speak to my daughter, to congratulate my daughter, and everything.

Vannatter:
But you didn’t have a conversation with her?

Simpson:
No, no.

Vannatter:
What were you wearing last night, O.J.?

Simpson:
What I wore, I wore on the golf course yesterday, some of these kind of pants, some of these kind of pants, I mean I changed different for the whatever it was. I just had on some …

Vannatter:
Just these black pants.

Simpson:
Just these … they’re called Bugle Boy.

Vannatter:
Bugle Boy? Is that what you wore to the recital?

Simpson:
No, to the recital I wore … what did I wear to the recital? I wore a white T-shirt and some slacks.

Vannatter:
These aren’t the pants?

Simpson:
No.

Vannatter:
Where are the pants that you wore?

Simpson:
They’re hanging in my closet.

Vannatter:
These are washable, right? You just throw them in the laundry?

Simpson:
Yeah, I got a hundred pair. They give them to me free, Bugle Boy, so I’ve got a bunch of them.

Vannatter:
Do you recall coming home and hanging them up, or …

Simpson:
I always hang up my clothes. I mean it’s rare that I don’t hang up my clothes unless I’m laying them in my bathroom for her to do something with them. But those are the only things I don’t hang up. But when you play golf you don’t necessarily dirty pants.

Lange:
What kind of shoes were you wearing?

Simpson:
Tennis shoes.

Lange:
Tennis shoes? Do you know what kind?

Simpson:
Probably Reebok, that’s all I wear.

Lange:
Are they at home, too?

Simpson:
Yeah.

Lange:
Was this just to be a short trip to Chicago, so you didn’t take a whole lot?

Simpson:
Yeah, I was coming back today.

Lange:
Just overnight?

Simpson:
Yeah.

Vannatter:
That’s a hectic schedule, drive back here to play golf and come back.

Simpson:
Yeah, but I do it all the time.

Vannatter:
Do you?

Simpson:
Yeah. That’s what I was complaining with the driver about, you know, about my whole life is on and off airplanes.

Vannatter:
O.J., we’ve got sort of a problem.

Simpson:
Mmm-hmm.

Vannatter:
We’ve got some blood on and in your car, we’ve got some blood at your house, and it’s sort of a problem.

Simpson:
Well, take my blood—test it.

Lange:
Well, we’d like to do that. We’ve got, of course the cut on your finger that you aren’t real clear on. Do you recall having that cut on your finger the last time you were at Nicole’s house?

Simpson:
[Pause] A week ago?

Lange:
Yeah.

Simpson:
No, it was last night.

Lange:
Okay, so it was last night you cut it?

Vannatter:
Somewhere after the recital?

Simpson:
Somewhere when I was rushing to get out of my house.

Vannatter:
Okay, after the recital?

Simpson:
Yeah.

Vannatter:
What do you think happened? Do you have any idea?

Simpson:
I have no idea, man. You guys haven’t told me anything. I have no idea what happened. When you said to my daughter, who said something to me today, that somebody else might have been involved. I have absolutely no idea what happened. I don’t know how, why, or what. I mean, you guys haven’t told me anything. Every time I ask you guys, you say you’re going to tell me in a bit.

Vannatter:
Well, we don’t know a lot of the answers to these questions yet ourselves, O.J., okay?

Simpson:
I’ve got a bunch of guns, guns all over the place. You can take them, they’re all there, I mean, you can see them. I keep them in my car for an incident that happened a month ago that my in-laws, my wife and everybody knows about that.

Vannatter:
What was that?

Simpson:
Going down to … and cops down there know about it because I’ve told two marshals about it at a mall. I was going down for a christening, and I had just left our set and it was like three-thirty in the morning and I am in a lane, and all of a sudden the car in front of me is going real slow, and I’m slowing down ’cause I figure he sees a cop, ’cause we were all going pretty fast and I’m going to change lanes, but there’s a car next to me and I can’t change lanes. Then that goes for a while, and I’m going to slow down and go around him, but the car butts up to me and I’m like caught between three cars. They were Oriental guys, and they were not letting me go anywhere. And finally I went on the shoulder, and I sped up, and then I held my phone up so they could see the light part of it, you know, ’cause I have tinted the windows, and they kind of scattered, and I chased one of them for a while to make him think I was chasing him before I took off.

Lange:
Were you in the Bronco?

Simpson:
No.

Lange:
What were you driving?

Simpson:
My Bentley. It has tinted windows and all, so I figured they thought they had a nice little touch.

Lange:
Did you think they were trying to rip you off?

Simpson:
Definitely, they were. And then the next day, you know, Nicole and I, I went home. At four in the morning I got there to Laguna, and when we woke up, I told her about it, and told her parents about it, told everybody about it, you know? And when I saw two marshals at a mall, I walked up and told them about it.

Vannatter:
What did they do, make a report on it?

Simpson:
They didn’t know nothing. I mean, they’ll remember me and remember I told them.

Vannatter:
Did Nicole mention that she’d been getting any threats lately to you? Anything she was concerned about or the kids’ safety?

Simpson:
To her?

Vannatter:
Yes.

Simpson:
From?

Vannatter:
From anybody?