All summer the affair grows more and more torrid. You never seen a woman change faster’n Frankie. There’s a bloom to her, a sort o’ radiance you have to see to believe. Everyone has taken it for granted she’s sort o’ plain but now most of ’em are willin’ to admit she comes close to bein’ a beauty.
The town’s divided about Reggie Van der Breughe. His struttin’ walk, his flute-like voice and exaggerated manners put the back up of a lot o’ men folk. On the other hand there’s some, ’specially among the women, who say we can do with a lot more good manners in Cripple’s Bend. Even Maw vows she wouldn’t mind havin’ someone kiss her hand and recite poetry to her.
Oz Bilbo ain’t a-sayin’ nothin’. He’s grown more and more sullen ’til he ain’t hardly speakin’ to a soul. Sometimes he drops around to church a-Sundays and sits a-glowerin’ first at Reggie than at Frankie, but neither of ’em pay him any mind.
One day Oz surprises me by stampin’ into my office. I tilt back my chair and light my pipe, waitin’ for him to speak his piece. Finally he blurts out, “I want you to investigate Reggie Van der Breughe.”
“Well, son,” I says, “I can’t do that. He ain’t broke no laws as far as I know.”
“He’s crazy as a june-bug.”
“What makes you say that, Oz?”
“If I tell you, you won’t believe it.”
“Try me out and see.”
“All right. I was up there to the Wilcox place last Friday. I mean I was passin’ by and turned in at the gate, thinkin’ I’d have a word with Frankie.”
“You weren’t a-spyin’ on her, was you, Oz?” *
He goes brick red. “Mebbe I was a little. I don’t trust that Reggie. Anyway, believe it or not, Frankie’s leanin’ on the balcony o’ the second floor and Reggie’s standin’ on the lawn below, strummin’ a guitar and croonin’ like a calf who can’t find his maw. It was real Romeo and Juliet stuff. I tell you, Sheriff, they’ve both gone around the bend.”
I says, “I don’t remember as how Romeo and Juliet was crazy.”
“Mebbe not. But you can’t deny they came to a sticky end. Can’t you do something, Sheriff?”
“What would you suggest?”
“Mebbe a little checkin’ back on this Van der Breughe. If you ask me he’s phony as a three dollar bill. All he spells is trouble for Frankie.”
I ain’t got no real reason but I decide it won’t do no harm to find out a bit more about Reggie. But wherever I check, I come to a deadend. His car’s rented and the only address he gives when he registers at Cripple’s Inn is New York. Even when I tackle him personally, it’s a waste o’ time. He’s polite but his answers add up to nothin’. He’s been livin’ around here and there. He don’t work but lives off a trust fund. Where’s his home? Well, he reckons it’s right here in Cripple’s Bend.
Meanwhile he lets it drop he’s asked Frankie to marry him. She ain’t exactly accepted but she ain’t said no neither. I don’t like it much. A feller like Reggie with his lemon vests and his guitar-strummin’ ain’t the kind to make a good husband for Frankie. I like it even less when Frankie comes to church wearin’ an engagement ring with a diamond that looks as big as a ping-pong ball. But I still ain’t got no excuse to stick my oar in.
The way things turn out there ain’t no need to. The quarrel between Frankie and Reggie breaks out in Gimpy’s Diner on Wednesday night after the moving picture show. It starts off real low-toned but ’tain’t long afore everyone in the diner knows there’s something wrong. Then Frankie jumps up, pulls off her ring and flings it at Reggie’s feet. She walks out o’ Gimpy’s, head high, heels a-clickin’. Reggie don’t even pick up the ring afore he heads out after her.
He catches up with her on the sidewalk outside and grabs her wrist.
He says, “You’ve got to listen to me, darling.”
Frankie draws herself up straight. “Keep your hands off me,” she says, real coldlike.
But Reggie clings to her, babblin’ away. Then Oz Bilbo looms out of the shadders. He seizes Reggie by the shoulder and spins him around.
“You heard what the lady said. Leave her alone.”
Reggie’s voice goes shrill. “Why don’t you mind your own business?” he screams. He reaches for Frankie again. This time Oz gives him a hard push.
Reggie ain’t the kind you’d expect to put up a fight. But he comes in with a clumsy crouch and takes a poke at Oz. Oz back-pedals but Reggie keeps on cornin’. Then Oz lets go with a good hard punch. Reggie swings part way around and the blow lands on his shoulder. It couldn’t have hurt him much, but he’s off balance and he goes down, sprawlin’ on the sidewalk. Oz stands over him, his fists clenched but Frankie steps in between.
She says, “Stop it. Both of you. You ought to be ashamed.”
Oz and Reggie start talkin’ at the same time. But she don’t listen to neither of ’em. She says, “You’re a couple of fools and I don’t want to see either of you again as long as I live.” Then she walks away, so fast she’s almost runnin’.
The next couple o’ weeks is bad ones for Reggie. He keeps tryin’ to patch things up but it ain’t no go. Frankie won’t as much as give him the time o’ day. He hangs around the Wilcox place ’til Frankie calls me and asks me to take him away.
Reggie ain’t never struck me as a very strong character but I warn’t expectin’ him to go to pieces the way he done. He was blubberin’ and moanin’ and claimin’ that life ain’t worth livin’ without Frankie. After that night, he takes to his cups in his grief but that don’t do him no good. All the time he’s talkin’ wilder and wilder.
Then one night I get another phone call from Frankie. She says. Reggie has just left her place in a terrible state. He’s swearin’ he’ll do away with himself, if she won’t marry him.
“I think he meant it,” Frankie explains. “And even if he didn’t, he shouldn’t be driving in the condition he’s in.”
The truth of the matter is I don’t take Reggie and his suicide threats too seriously. But the next momin’ I change my tune. Sam Berdine who lives out near Maxwell’s Cove comes rushin’ into my office. He says there’s a little red bug of a car abandoned on a deserted strip of beach out where he lives.
I drive out to check and, sure enough, it’s Reggie’s Volkswagen. There’s a rotting jetty nearby that’s posted as dangerous. I work my way along it and see where the wood’s been freshly splintered. When I get out to the end, I spy a roll of clothing wedged up between two uprights. There’s no mistakin’ the Italian silk jacket and lemon vest o’ Reggie’s. Inside a pocket o’ the jacket is a suicide note. It’s addressed to Frankie in Reggie’s spindly writin’.
I read it and it’s flowery as all get-out but there ain’t nothin’ to do but deliver it.
Frankie takes the news a lot harder’n I expect. She starts cryin’ and sayin’ it’s all her fault and she really loved Reggie all the time. While she’s wailin’, who should drive up to the house but Oz Bilbo. Frankie don’t even look at him. She keeps carryin’ on fit to kill, insistin’ I take her out to the jetty.
I drive her out there but there ain’t much to see. It’s a foggy sort o’ day and the beach is gray and forlorn. Frankie paces up and down like she’s demented and then she gives a scream and falls to her knees on the sand. I come a-rushin’. There beside her is Reggie’s bamboo walkin’ stick that he was always a-twistin’ and a-twirlin’.
Frankie’s still a-crouchin’ over it when Oz Bilbo’s battered-up jalopy comes skiddin’ along the beach. Oz jumps out of it and comes runnin’ across the sand to Frankie. I reckon there ain’t nothin’ for me to do but clear out for awhile, so I walk down the beach quite a piece.
When I turn and look back, Frankie’s on her feet and Oz has got his arm around her. Her forehead is restin’ against his shoulder and he’s pattin’ her sort o’ rough and awkward. Somehow I don’t feel as bad as I should. I reckon Oz will take a lot better care o’ Frankie and the Wilcox farm than Reggie Van der Breughe would ever have done.