| Ruthanne Belinda Hill Bradigan | |
|---|---|
|
Born |
1908, Stearnsville NC |
|
Gender |
Female |
|
Role in Story |
Protagonist |
|
Skin |
Fair with freckles |
|
Hair |
Auburn |
|
Eyes |
Brown |
|
Book |
In Memory of Frankie Hill (working title) by E.E. Buchanan |
Ruthanne Belinda Hill, later Ruthanne Bradigan, is the protagonist in In Memory of Frankie Hill. Created by ScottyBlue.
NOTE:
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Story
(Spoilers)
Ruthanne was the granddaughter of the wealthy Elvira Hill. She had one sibling, her brother Francis whom she called Frankie. Her mother Reba died giving birth to Frankie, and her father, Elvira's son Jeremiah, was killed overseas in WWI, in 1918. Ruthanne took it upon herself to be the 'woman of the house' and look after Frankie, even though Elvira had custody of her and Frankie, because neither of the children cared for their snobbish and bossy grandmother. Ruthanne loved her little brother dearly, and even when others disliked the scrupulously honest (and tactless) Frankie's actions, Ruthanne knew there was no harm in him, and constantly stuck up for him, even when Frankie would prefer just to let insults slide.
When he was 10, Frankie told Ruthanne he had witnessed a strange sight. A large party was being thrown for the little town of Stearnsville, in honor of the new year. While playing hide and seek with other children at the party, Frankie was alone in an empty room when a man and woman came in and started fighting. Frankie looked out just in time to see the woman be attacked by the man, seize a poker, and beat off her attacker, finally jabbing him in the stomach and knocking him down. Frankie fled as soon as he got the chance to tell Ruthanne, who knew his honestly and believed him at once. When the body of local businessman Herb Cromarty was discovered outside, stabbed to death, Frankie assumed he was the man he saw attacked, and, encouraged by Ruthanne, told his story to the police. However, his story couldn't be proved and a man, Ross DeAndrea, instead of a woman, was hanged for the crime.
Frankie was branded a liar by everyone except Ruthanne and DeAndrea's nephew Myron, and he and Ruthanne were made laughingstocks when, even into their late teens, they insisted that the executed man was innocent. Ruthanne and Frankie soon became all each other had. Ruthanne was even more vehement than her brother at times, and suffered for her belief in his goodness and honesty, developing quite a chip on her shoulder over it. Not being very physically attractive, developed a further chip on her shoulder when people started making fun of her as ugly.
Finally, Elvira had had enough of the two of them, and delivered an ultimatum. If the two grandchildren did not want to be disinherited, Ruthanne would be separated from her "unhealthy" attachment to her "liar" brother and trained as a proper lady, and Frankie would publicly confess that DeAndrea was guilty and his "attention-getting" story was bogus, thereby ending the humiliation to the Hill name. Frankie, not willing to lie to look respectable, immediately told Elvira she could take her money and burn it for all he cared, moving away to Raleigh to make a new life for himself. Ruthanne thought it unfair Frankie should be done out of his rights over this matter, so she let Elvira send her to a fancy girls' school in Boston even though she had no desire to go and knew her plainness would make her a ripe subject for bullying by the other girls (which prediction came true, unfortunately). Frankie took great exception to his sister's decision, and tried to talk her out of it, but Ruthanne was adamant that she would endure whatever necessary to see justice done. However, the plan backfired when Elvira lost all her money in the crash of 1929, dying practically penniless.
Ruthanne and Frankie corresponded almost daily with letters, so it was almost the same as living together. She left the girls' boarding school immediately upon her grandmother's death and returned to Stearnsville, only to discover she inherited nothing. Bitter at the injustice of it all, she got a job as a nurse to tide her over. However, the doctor she worked for was not a nice man, and shamelessly mistreated all his subordinates because he knew in the Great Depression economy they didn't dare leave him and try to find other jobs, so he had power over them. Ruthanne still communicated with Frankie, who became the only light in her life as he was the only person who showed her any sort of affection. He had not let the old DeAndrea case go, and was now a detective himself, using the resources of his new job to help him finally solve the case. Ruthanne supplied what addresses and information she could to him, so he could question people and get to the truth.
Frankie started writing to Ruthanne that he was on to something big and possibly dangerous, and wanted to talk to her in person instead of risking writing to her about it and have the information intercepted. She finally managed to save up enough money to visit Frankie in Raleigh - it would be the first time in nearly ten years they had seen each other face to face. She also arranged to meet with Frankie's fellow private investigator, Dillon Bradigan, before they both would meet with Frankie in a secret place to exchange information. The young Irish Immigrant worked at the same agency as Frankie, had become his close friend, and was excited to meet Frankie's sister after hearing so much about her. Ruthanne had heard a lot about Dillon as well, but upon meeting him wasn't particularly impressed by his over-friendliness and excitability. It also irritated her that, no matter how sharp she was to him or how much she carried that chip on her shoulder, Dillon continued to pester her and try to be friendly to her, much like a big and stupid dog. Dillon also became irritated, because he was trying to be nice to someone his best friend loved and kept getting rebuffed for it when he was doing nothing wrong.
The day Frankie returned to Raleigh from his secret mission out of town, Dillon and Ruthanne went to the secluded place on a riverbank to meet him. Just as Frankie emerged from the fog, shots rang out, and he toppled over the side of the river and disappeared from sight into the mist-covered rapids. Blood was found on the riverbank where the shots had been fired, and some of Frankie's clothes washed up downstream, confirming he had been assassinated. His apartment was broken into and ransacked, and a secret letter he had posted just before meeting Ruthanne and Dillon told them that they needed to check "the Empty House" for the truth about what had happened.
Both Ruthanne and Dillon were absolutely devastated by the loss of Frankie, and agreed to put their differences aside to try to find who did it. They took the last letter to reference Elvira's house, and went there to search for clues. However, Ruthanne, who felt that she had little left to live for and wanted the case solved for the sake of clearing Frankie's memory, was nearly driven to distraction by Dillon's overeagerness and unwillingness to let her brood and be moody without trying to cheer her up, and after several days finally told him to go away and let her solve the case on her own. Dillon refused, and they were in the middle of arguing over the matter when Ruthanne's estranged uncle Cletus Hill came onto the scene. He had been unhappy for years about the case, as well, but afraid of someone and not willing to tell what he knew for fear his wife and family would be hurt. However, Frankie's death, and the untimely passing of his wife from polio, convinced him he needed to come clean. With the information Cletus gave them, Ruthanne realized that Herb Cromarty's death had been accidental, and the real murder was that of DeAndrea by Cromarty's son Luke, a very vicious and unstable man who had framed DeAndrea by making Cromarty's death look like a murder and then falsely testifying against him in court. He had shot Frankie when the latter started to uncover his almost perfect crime. When Dillon found where Luke had hidden some proof of his deception, that clenched the matter.
Ruthanne wished to confront the killer alone, but Dillon wouldn't hear of it. Finally, Ruthanne agreed to let Dillon watch in secret under condition he only step in if she gave him a secret signal to do so. Ruthanne confronted Luke Cromarty, and he confessed to the whole thing boldly before trying to eliminate her as well. Ruthanne fought back, and while she was holding her own rather well, she eventually gave Dillon the signal just to keep him from bursting in impulsively at a bad time, and messing things up. However, she was terrified when two men came to her aid - Dillon, and an apparently resurrected Frankie.
Seeing the 'ghost', Cromarty also was terrified went to pieces, and allowed himself to be quietly arrested by the police when Frankie called them in. Ruthanne and Frankie were finally reunited, and Ruthanne remembered suddenly that "The Empty House" was a reference to a Sherlock Holmes story where Holmes fakes his death to protect Watson, and that Frankie was trying to tell her he was all right when he wrote the letter, not give them clues to the mystery. She, Dillon, and Frankie returned to Raleigh, where she got a job with them as the first female operative of the Ned Black detective agency. The trio later took it over when the owner died, changing the name to the Hill-Bradigan Detective Agency. Ruthanne and Dillon eventually married, and had one child, their daughter Frances.