Flashbacks and newspaper articles from 1930 depict the aftermath of Ruth’s decision to leave Frank. In November, several KKK members appear outside the Whistle Stop Cafe, and Ruth realizes one of them is Frank when she recognizes his shoes. Grady warns them off, but an article from the Valdosta Gazette reveals that Frank went missing a couple of weeks later. In mid-December, Grady and two Georgia detectives visit the cafe and ask Idgie and Smokey whether they’ve seen Frank around Whistle Stop, which they deny. A few days later, one of the detectives returns and speaks to Idgie privately. He tells her he knows she once threatened Frank, and says, “just hypothetically speaking, of course, if it was [him] in [her] shoes, why, [he’d] figure it would do [him] a whole lot of good if that body didn’t show up at all” (213). By January 1931, the authorities presume Frank is dead, although his body and his truck are still missing.

Other flashbacks center on Artis Peavey, who leaves Birmingham for Chicago in 1940. The Slagtown News notes that Artis is “sorely missed by the female population.” In fact, it was Artis’s womanizing that forced him to leave the city, since one of his many lovers, Electra Green, was threatening to kill him (224).