Boland started the discussion by asking me about my background. I knew he wanted to check me out, make sure I was on the level about being a published author and biographer. I told him Id been writing since I was twenty-three. Seven biographies to date, all still in print. I mentioned that I had earned a great deal of money during the lastfifteen years but that I did the work because I loved it.
He wanted more. I told him that as a child growing up in a large southern household, I tripped over lots of nasty secrets. I spent a great part of my youth trying to untie the Gordian knot that was my family. It turned out to be good practice for my future profession. I explained that I despised secrets and that I didn’t believe in heroes. Heroes were unreal, deeply dangerous constructs, mainly because they allowed us a false concept of what it was to be human. I don’t know whether he understood any of what I said, but he sat politely and listened.
After I gave him a copy of my last book — a biography of Gore Vidal — and he checked out my photo on the back cover, he seemed impressed. I told him he could keep the book so he asked me to sign it. I wrote: “To my friend Oscar Boland. Thanks for the highly informative interview. Best wishes, Marie Damontraville.” I thought the “highly informative interview “part might spur some cooperation. His reaction was far more positive than I could have imagined. There was a sudden sea change in his demeanor. He seemed both flustered andflattered — well, as flustered andflattered as an ex-marine type with a stone face can get. We ordered drinks, I turned on the recorder, and we were off.
INTERVIEW: OSCAR BOLAND, THE LYME HOUSE, MINNEAPOLIS, MAY 8
M:
How did you first meet Wayne Buckridge?
Boland:
I never talked about this to anyone before, but I guess it’s okay to tell you. I mean, you want the truth, right? That’s what you ‘re telling me is important, and I agree that it is. I just don’t want to hurt anybody. I want to make that perfectly clear up front. Okay, so I’ve been thinking about all this since you called, trying to get it straight in my mind. It must have been about 52, the year before Wayne married Pepper. He was probably thirty-four or so. I was twenty-two. I’d taken my parents ‘speedboat out on the lake one afternoon. What lake? Oh, Minnetonka, where we had a summer home. It was a beautiful day, so I thought I’d just stop somewhere out in the middle and catch some sun. It was a weekday, pretty quiet on the water. I cruised around for a while, looking for just the right spot, when I spied this guy in a rowboat. He was standing up, holding what looked like a gun. I watched him for a few seconds. He was just staring at the waves. Before I realized what was happening, he pointed the thing at his head, I heard a blast, and he fell headfirst into the water. I throttled up and shot across the water, then cut the motor and dove in. I was a pretty strong swimmer in those days. I found him all right. About twenty feet down and sinking fast. The bullet had barely grazed his temple, but he was out cold, probably from shock He would have drowned for sure if I hadn’t come along.
M:
It was a suicide attempt?
Boland:
He never actually admitted it, but yeah, I think so. From what I could piece together later, I figured it had something to do with the war. WW II. He spent most of his tour in France. It changed him, he always said that. I remember him telling me once that he’d gone into the army an innocent young boy and come out a corrupt old man. Between you and me, I don’t think Wayne Buckridge liked himself very much after the war. But as far as I know, he never tried to hurt himself again. He’d been drinking that day. And he’d lost his job the week before. A man can only take so much.
M:
When did he meet his wife?
Boland:
You mean hisfirst wife, Pepper? I’d known her since I was a kid. Her real name is Leona, but no one ever called her that. Pepper justfit her personality better. Her parents had a beautiful summer home just down the road. By the time I introduced her to Wayne, he and I had become great pals. I don’t know why. We were total strangers before the accident happened, but for some reason it sort ofdrew us together. Life can be strange like that. Hell, the guy didn’t have many friends, and he needed someone to talk to. You know — about life, the crap that happens, how to deal with stuff. Wayne’s family was all gone, except for an unmarried aunt he rarely saw. I had a big family. We alljust sort of adopted him — well, mainly me, I guess, but my mom and dad were happy to have him around. He was a swell guy. Husky. Good-looking. Athletic. Great personality. But he had this dark side to him. Id seen it, though I doubt very many other people had. Back in the early days, he was always the life of the party. You d never know he had a care in the world. But I knew. He hated what had happened in France, all the men he d had to kill. He thought of it as murder, kids murdering kids. I suppose that’s why he drank too much sometimes. I even saw him cry once. Funny, it way the night before he married Pepper.
M:
What was he crying about?
Boland:
Beats the hell out of me. He should have been on top of the world. I know he loved her, so that wasn’t it. I think though, deep down inside, he thought she was too good for him. I mean, he really got lucky when he met Pepper Skeffington. Not only did he get himself a rich young wife but his future career as well. His father-in-law thought the sun rose and set on him. As soon as the happy couple got back from their honeymoon, Skeffington started grooming Wayne to take over the company — when he was gone, of course. Which was many years later.
M:
What sort of company
was
it?
Boland:
You’ve never heard of Skeffington Construction? Jesus, lady, they built half the homes in this town. After the war, the economy boomed. Alan Skeffington was a multimillionaire by the time his only daughter was seventeen years old. She even dated my older brother a few times, but you know how it is. No sparks. But when she met Wayne at one of our summer lake parties, it was love — or at least lust — at first sight. They were married ten months later.
M:
Was she pregnant?
Boland:
Nah. It wasn’t like that.
M:
Was the marriage a happy one?
Boland:
Sure. As happy as marriages go. Pepper wanted kids badly, but they didn’t have much luck for a while. Finally, when she was around thirty, they had Paul.
M:
So Paul isn’t Constance Buckridge’s natural son.
Boland:
No. I believe Connie formally adopted him, though. Anyway, after he was born, I sensed that Wayne had pulled away from Pepper, or maybe it was the other way around. Whatever the case, Wayne started working longer hours and Pepper spent all her time with her kid. She didn’t seem all that unhappy, though from what I observed, Wayne did. I was good friends with both of them, you understand, but I was closer to Wayne. By then Id gotten married myself. Had a good job at an insurance company. We all got together at least once every week or two for drinks and cards. Pepper was a real bridge player. She even organized a bridge club. Wayne was always at work, so she needed the company. When Paul was two, they moved into a new house, a mansion really. Wayne built it for them. It was on the other side of the lake from my parents ‘summer home. Very ritzy. They hired a maid and a cook and a guy to keep the grounds. Wayne was vice president of Skeffington Construction by then. He’d helped the company branch off into some highly lucrative product development. I don’t remember now what it all was, but Wayne was a natural at business. When Paul was three, Alan Skeffington died, leaving the company to Wayne and Pepper. Wayne immediately renamed it Buckridge Construction. I guess I understood, although Pepper didn’t. She would have preferred him to keep her father s name on the business.
M:
Wayne must have been thrilled.
Boland:
Yeah, I guess so. But it was hard to tell by then. He was drinking too much. I guess you could say his unhappiness was beginning to show. What made it worse was that Pepper had become a full-fledged hypochondriac. I figured it was her way of getting his attention, but actually she always was a hypochondriac, even when we were kids. She’d get a cold and have to go to bed for two weeks. But by her midthirties, she was sure she had cancer, diabetes, a bad heart, walking pneumonia, and just about every other malady known to modern man.
M:
Was she really sick?
Boland:
If you d asked me then, I would have told you it was all an act. But, in the end, it turned out she wasn’t making it up. Something was wrong with her, all right. She went to dozens of different doctors to find out why her body didn’t feel right. I mean, the tests that woman had — it was enough to curl your socks. And the money it cost. But nobody could help.
M:
Maybe it was psychosomatic.
Boland:
You mean, it was all in her head?
M:
No, it was real, but it was caused by her emotions. It sounds like her husband wasn’t around much. She couldn’t have felt very loved or supported.
Boland:
(Shrugs) Yeah, I guess you’re right. It’s too bad, really. They started out with so much going for them. But I’m not sure Wayne knew how to be happy. Maybe that’s why he was crying the night before he got married. Maybe he knew he was going to make Pepper miserable, ruin both their lives.
M:
If he was that prescient, he was an unusual man.
Boland:
Pardon me?
M:
Tell me, Mr. Boland, how did Pepper Buckridge die?
Boland:
Well, I was on the road at the time, so I heard about it later from Wayne. He was pretty torn up. Seems she got real sick one night. She’d been bedridden off and on for many months, but the last week was the worst. That night she had some sort of crisis. Stomach pains. Vomiting. I don’t know what else. Wayne rushed her to the emergency room and the doctors did what they could, but she died in his arms. I arranged most of the funeral. Wayne was too upset. He said he blamed himself for her death. He should have been more sympathetic, should have helped her find a specialist who could really get to the bottom of her medical problems. It was just that he was so tired out by her continuous complaints. I think after a while, he just tuned her out.
M:
What happened to Paul while all this was happening?
Boland:
He was pretty small. When Pepper was no longer able to care for him, she hired a nanny. The woman didn’t last a month. She hired a couple more, but nobody worked out. So I guess between the cook the maid, and the groundsman, little Paul was looked after. Every time I was there he always seemed happy enough.
M:
How did Wayne meet his second wife?
Boland:
Connie? She was one of the housemaids and then, later, the cook. She came to work for the family in ‘61, right after they moved into the new house. I doubt she was more than twenty-two or twenty-three at the time, although she had a son who was around seven. If I’m not mistaken, Nathan was five years older than Paul.
M:
So Nathan was Constance s natural son but not by Wayne Buckridge.
Boland:
Right. You know, if you do the math, you realize that she must have gotten pregnant when she was fifteen. I don’t think I ‘m telling tales out of school. I ‘m sure someone’s figured that out by now, although when I’ve seen articles printed in newspapers about her and the kids, they often make Paul and Nathan the same age, and several years younger than they really are. It s probably a source of some shame on her part. I mean, she never talked much about Nathan’s father. Wayne told me some guy got her pregnant and then took off, though you can’t quote me, because I don’t recall the details, if I ever heard any. But I don’t think she was ever married. And a problem like that carried a real stigma back then. From what she told me later, she came to Minneapolis to live with her brother because her parents threw her out. Bad situation all around. Connie was a nice-enough young woman but not very well educated. She was extraordinarily pretty. A natural platinum blonde. Great body. But terribly shy. She was what you might call sweet. She was from somewhere in Wisconsin, I think That’s all I know about her background.
M:
How did she become romantically involved with Wayne?
Boland:
Well, now, I don’t have all the details on that either. I know she worked in the house for at least a year before she took over the cook s position. It was lots more money than the maid position, but I don’t think that s what got her interested in it. She and the cook got along famously. Connie would always ask her if she needed any help. Even then, Connie — we never called her Constance — had an affinity for cooking. She learned everything the woman could teach her and then she started taking out books from the library. I remember Wayne saying once that the dinner we were having that evening was one of “Connie s many learning experiences.” To be honest, it was a superb meal. When the cook decided to accept another position, Connie applied for her job and got it. By then, Wayne was in his midforties and was starting to put on weight. Funny. As I think about it now, while Pepper was wasting away up in her room, Wayne was stuffing himself with Connie s fabulous food in the dining room. One of life s crazy ironies, I guess. I suppose it was only natural that Wayne and Connie struck up a friendship. For all practical purposes, they were alone in the house most evenings. See, during the last six months of Pepper’s life, she was always in bed by seven. Wayne rarely got home before then, and he wanted his dinner right away.