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  HAVE YOUR TICKET PUNCHED

  BY FRANK JAMES

  A JEMMY MCBUSTLE MYSTERY

  HAVE YOUR TICKET PUNCHED BY FRANK JAMES

  FEDORA AMIS

  FIVE STAR

  A part of Gale, a Cengage Company

  Copyright © 2019 by Fedora Amis

  Five Star Publishing, a part of Gale, a Cengage Company

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  The publisher bears no responsibility for the quality of information provided through author or third-party Web sites and does not have any control over, nor assume any responsibility for, information contained in these sites. Providing these sites should not be construed as an endorsement or approval by the publisher of these organizations or of the positions they may take on various issues.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Amis, Fedora, author.

  Title: Have your ticket punched by Frank James : a Jemmy McBustle mystery / by Fedora Amis.

  Description: First Edition. | Farmington Hills, Michigan : Five Star, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning, 2019.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018039838 (print) | LCCN 2018041377 (ebook) | ISBN 9781432851941 (ebook) | ISBN 9781432851934 (ebook) | ISBN 9781432851927 (hardcover)

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4328-5194-1

  Subjects: | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3601.M576 (ebook) | LCC PS3601.M576 H38 2019 (print) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018039838

  First Edition. First Printing: May 2019

  This title is available as an e-book.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4328-5194-1

  Find us on Facebook—https://www.facebook.com/FiveStarCengage

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  Contact Five Star Publishing at [email protected]

  Printed in the United States of America

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 23 22 21 20 19

  I dedicate this book to Damon, the son who has always been the joy of my life.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I owe a debt of gratitude to the wonderful people at the Missouri Historical Society Library, as well as both the St. Louis City and County Public Libraries. Without their maps of 1897 St. Louis and their microfilmed newspapers, I’d still be confused about the what’s, who’s, and where’s. I also thank St. Louis itself for being the heartland’s bustling center of commerce, culture, and crime in 1898.

  I owe a big round of applause to my Sisters in Crime. Their unstinting support made me believe I could write a mystery, and their ceaseless prodding made me prove it.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Although this Victorian whodunit is the fictitious product of my fevered brain, I’ve borrowed some real people and events from the past.

  FRANK JAMES

  Alexander Franklin James. (January 10, 1843–February 18, 1915)

  During the Civil War, Frank fought under CSA Major General Sterling Price at the Battle of Wilson’s Creek near Springfield, Missouri, (August 10, 1861) and at the siege of Lexington, Missouri, (September 12–20, 1861). He later became a bushwhacker under Bloody Bill Anderson and participated in the Centralia, Missouri, massacre (September 27, 1864). Anderson’s men stopped a train, robbed the passengers, and murdered nearly thirty of them; most were unarmed federal soldiers on leave.

  Frank James, along with William Clark Quantrill, formed Morgan’s Raiders—some fifty guerrillas under Marcellus Jerome Clark, better known as Sue Mundy. The gang surrendered at Samuel’s Depot, Kentucky, on July 26, 1865, and all were paroled.

  Between 1870 and 1876 the James-Younger gang ranged from Kansas to Kentucky and from Minnesota to Texas robbing banks, holding up stages, and sticking up trains. Robbing trains brought them popularity with common folk because railroads were generally despised for price-gouging. The M-K-T (Missouri-Kansas-Texas, better known as the Katy Line) charged farmers more to ship their wheat to market than the wheat was worth.

  The James boys’ legend grew with help from dime novel authors and journalists who glorified them. St. Joseph Gazette editor John N. Edwards compared them to the Knights of the Round Table.

  Pinkerton actions brought the James boys even more sympathy. Detectives sneaked up to the James-Samuel home and tossed a flare lamp through a window. It exploded and killed nine-year-old Archie Samuel. Frank’s mother, Mrs. Zerelda Samuel, suffered such injury to her right arm that it had to be amputated. Later they tortured and killed Doctor Samuel, Frank’s stepfather.

  For three years Frank and Jesse lived under assumed names with their wives and children in places like Nashville, St. Louis, and even Kansas City, less than forty miles from their home town of Kearney, Missouri. They hid in well-populated places. As Frank once remarked, “Most people look alike in the city.”

  Railroads offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the capture, dead or alive, of either Frank or Jesse.

  After Jesse’s death at the hands of the Ford brothers, Frank surrendered to Governor Thomas T. Crittenden at Jefferson City on October 5, 1882. He stood trial at Gallatin, Missouri, and Muscle Shoals, Alabama—acquitted for lack of evidence both times.

  When he was a free man, Frank worked as a shoe clerk and as a starter at the race track at St. Louis Fairgrounds Park. The title Have Your Ticket Punched by Frank James came from a promotion run by the Standard Theatre in St. Louis, where Frank served as doorman in 1898. Frank’s arrest in St. Louis is my complete fabrication. After Jesse’s death, Frank was an exemplary, law-abiding citizen. Frank was also quite the Shakespearean scholar, thanks to his minister father, a graduate of Georgetown College of Kentucky. Robert Sallee James wanted his sons to be well educated.

  Frank toured with Cole Younger in the unsuccessful “Cole Younger−Frank James Wild West Show.” During his later years, Frank returned to the James-Samuel farm, where he charged visitors fifty cents apiece for tours.

  SASSY AND TONY

  Tony von Phul (Yes, it’s pronounced “von fool”) and Sassy Patterson were real people. Both were St. Louisans, though their story played out its tragic ending in Denver thirteen years after the setting of Have Your Ticket Punched by Frank James. Sylvester Louis “Tony” von Phul was a famous balloonist and rake about town.

  In 1900, twenty-year-old Isabel married drunk and abusive shoe salesman John E. Folck and moved to Memphis. “The Butterfly” returned alone to St. Louis in 1906. She lived at the Jefferson Hotel, built in 1904 for World’s Fair visitors. “At midnight, things begin to wake up” at this posh new hotel—just the place for Sassy.

  For her second husband, Isabel “Sassy” Patterson Folck turned practical. She married rich Denver businessman John Springer. But marriage didn’t keep her from writing steamy letters to von Phul—which she later regretted. She enlisted the help of handsome Denver admirer Frank Henwood to retrieve the letters.

  Henwood confronted von Phul in Tony’s rooms at the Brown Palace Hotel—and von Phul roughed him up. Henwood came better prepared later when he drew a gun on von Phul at the Palace’s Marble Bar on May 24, 1911. Frank Henwood shot and killed von Phul. In the melee, he also killed bystander George Copeland.

  Henwood was tried twice, convicted, and sentenced to death, but the governor commuted the sentence and later paroled him. Springer divorced Sa
ssy, and the notoriety followed her. She died alone and penniless in New York in 1917.

  MORE GENUINE BITS OF POP CULTURE FROM THE MAUVE DECADE OF THE GILDED AGE

  The City of St. Louis adopted the Bertillon system on May 19, 1897. The goal of the system was to discover criminal type. To that end, police measured ear and nose length—as well as the length of the middle finger.

  Storm Queen boots cost $1.38. Plays were often double-cast to make them more impressive. The Mizzou football team got in trouble for going all the way to Mexico City without permission in 1896. In 1879 Doctor Joseph Lawrence and Jordan Wheat Lambert invented Listerine in St. Louis as a surgical antiseptic. It was not a rousing success until the 1920s, after some genius invented a “disease” Listerine could cure—halitosis, a fancy made-up name for bad breath.

  Under the leadership of Julius Lesser, the Jewish fair took place during Thanksgiving week, 1898, and it ended with paper streamers thrown in their Confetti War on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

  Mary Institute really did present a matinee program on Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 1898; and there really was an honest-to-goodness cussing Japanese lady acrobat at the 1898 St. Louis Hebrew Charity Fair.

  CHAPTER ONE

  St. Louis, Missouri

  Thursday, November 17, 1898

  One Week Before Thanksgiving

  “I can’t breathe. Just think. We’re about to meet the famous outlaw himself—Jesse James.”

  “Calm down, Sassy. Jesse James is dead. The ticket taker we’re about to meet is his brother, Frank James.”

  “But he’s a famous outlaw, too, isn’t he?”

  “Yes. He’s the most famous living outlaw in America.” Jemima McBustle rolled her eyes. Could anybody but Sassy Patterson have a head so pretty or so empty? Jemmy couldn’t help envying Sassy’s careless optimism. Sassy could do as she pleased. She wasn’t torn between a family pushing her to marry well and the career she felt born to.

  “Do you think Frank James will rob us?”

  “No, I think he’ll punch our tickets.”

  “If that famous outlaw speaks to me, I’ll faint dead away. I had to sweet-talk my escort into letting me hold my own ticket. I would absolutely swoon if I’m not allowed to hand the great outlaw the ticket myself.”

  Jemmy shuddered from a gust of cold air and pulled her borrowed fur capelet snugly around her shoulders. She pulled up the collar to warm her neck with its silky softness.

  The pair stood in line in the outer lobby of Crystal Palace Theatre on a chilly November evening. The foyer smelled of floor wax with drifts of perfume from well-dressed ladies and gents.

  “You don’t faint over men. They faint over you.” A wave of jealousy washed over Jemmy. She couldn’t help it. With glossy, dark hair and cheeks that needed no rouge to be rosy, Isabel “Sassy” Patterson always looked as though she’d stepped off the pages of a Gibson Girl calendar.

  Sassy giggled. “Just think—Jesse James’s brother, Frank James, in person. Rumor has it he’s murdered seventeen men. And that doesn’t count the ones he killed during the War Between the States.”

  “Ssshh. If our escorts and my aunt and uncle hear you, they’ll take us straight home. We wouldn’t see the show or Frank James either.”

  “My old shuffle-shoon is deaf as a block of salt and half as handsome. He has only one saving grace—enough money to make a girl almost forget what an old fogy he is.”

  “My Aunt Delilah has perfect hearing. You’d be wise not to upset her. If you’re fond enough of money to marry an old codger like Dr. Wangermeier, she’s your best bet. I call her matchmaker to the white-haired, well-to-do old men of St. Louis.”

  “Heigho, Dearie. You’re old fashioned. I don’t have to marry a man, rich or otherwise, to get what I want from him.”

  Sassy told the truth. She had amassed an impressive collection of expensive jewelry. Garnering gems came as easily to her as fluttering her long, dark eyelashes. How did she do it? A simple ploy worked wonders. When escorted by a man of means, she wore no jewelry at all. She let her elegant neck and her smooth white bosom do the asking for her. Rich men who brought no presents to their second appointment never enjoyed a third.

  That night she wore only tiny seed-pearl earrings. Her rubies and sapphires stayed home in velvet-lined boxes from Jaccards. Diamond baubles were reserved for balls—to be admired by spirited young men who danced well. Whether they were rich was entirely up to them.

  Circumstances had brought the two young ladies together. Jemmy didn’t actually like Sassy, but fate kept throwing the two girls into each other’s company. They were born in the same year—1880. More to the point, they were outcasts—too fast for the proper debutante crowd. St. Louis society considered Sassy a loose woman—even though she wore her corset as tight as the snobbiest blue nose could wish. Powerful matrons deemed her less than nice because she accepted expensive gifts from men who weren’t her betrothed.

  Society took even less notice of Jemmy. She labored at a regular job and got paid for it.

  Sassy was like no one else in St. Louis—in the Americas—in the world. She could never be picky with girlfriends, or she would have had none at all. But with the opposite sex, she was a tyrant. Next to her, Nero seemed docile as one of Bo Peep’s sheep. She insisted the man for her would have the money of J. P. Morgan, the physique of Sandow the Strongman, the fashion sense of Beau Brummell, and Don Juan’s legendary way with women.

  Trouble was she could find no one man with all those attributes. She did the next best thing. She found one suitable representative from each group and somehow managed to keep them all balanced against each other. Renowned juggler Paul Cinquevali could keep in the air a piece of paper, a bottle, an egg, and a cannonball. Sassy was equally adept at keeping her exotic assortment of suitors aloft.

  That night Sassy fairly glowed in rose satin, which elegantly matched the blush in her cheeks. Dark hair upswept and adorned with rose quartz teardrops, she turned heads from the moment her escort handed her down from the carriage in front of the theatre.

  “Look, Skeezuck, look. ‘Have your ticket punched by the legendary Frank James.’ ” Sassy pointed to the words on a banner pasted in upswept diagonal across a play poster.

  “I see it. Stop beating on my arm. And don’t you think I’m a little old to be ‘Skeezuck?’ ” Jemmy loathed the nickname. In fact, she loathed Sassy’s habit of sprinkling cutesy lines from children’s poems into every conversation.

  “No one ever grows too old for monkeyshines. I’d die of boredom if ever I did.”

  The pair had become so ensnared in their own conversation, they arrived at the ticket taker’s stand unawares.

  “Young lady, may I verify your ticket?” The man spoke—Frank James, none other than celebrated train robber and brother to the legendary Jesse James. Handlebar mustaches sprinkled with gray gave him a distinguished air.

  Jemmy held out her ticket for him to punch while Sassy stood with mouth open. “Miss, may I have your ticket? I promise not to keep it.” Frank James tilted his head expectantly.

  Jemmy pulled Sassy’s hand, the one holding the ticket, up to meet Frank’s hole punch. Snick. It was done. Jemmy eased Sassy into forward motion. Just then Sassy found her voice. “I’m charmed to meet you, Mr. James.”

  “And I, you, miss. If we do meet again, why, we shall smile.”

  Jemmy steered Sassy past the ticket taker’s stand.

  “You don’t have to yank my arm out of its socket.”

  “Yes, I do. You can’t start a conversation in a theatre queue. People are trying to come in from the cold.”

  “What a lovely thing he said to me. Shakespeare, wasn’t it? He’s famous for quoting Shakespeare.”

  “The line is from Julius Caesar. Said by an assassin who’s about to commit suicide.”

  “You rob the moment of all joy, you naughty Skeezuck.”

  “My name is Jemima. Stop calling me ‘Skeezuck.’ And stop pouting. You’re not in kindergart
en.”

  “I promise to stop calling you ‘Skeezuck’ if you’ll help me at intermission.”

  “I know that tone of voice. It means trouble.”

  “Don’t be silly. We’ll have a great lark. If you help me get backstage, I’ll introduce you to a fellow with the biggest muscles you ever saw.”

  “Let me guess. You’re sneaking away to meet your mystery strongman. He’s the person you came to see, not Frank James. After all, Mr. James must be past fifty—and not rich, or he wouldn’t be a theatre ticket taker.”

  Sassy stuck out her lower lip in a pretty pout. “I wanted to see Mr. James, too.”

  Jemmy shook her auburn tresses and gave in. No doubt Sassy would land both of them in trouble. Of course, they could generally extricate themselves. Two smiling pretty girls who knew how to work their wiles could be mighty persuasive to males of all ages.

  The party of six entered Mr. Erwin McBustle’s loge box. The gentlemen seated the ladies in front, then took their own places on the second row. Jemmy’s Aunt Delilah produced her opera glasses to investigate the crowd. “We’re in good company tonight. Mayor Zeigenhein and Boss Butler are two boxes down.”

  Aunt Delilah Snodderly McBustle, wife of Mother’s brotherin-law Erwin McBustle, was a fine figure of a Victorian lady “of a certain station and of a certain age.” Beyond plump and somewhere between imposing and obese, she looked exactly like what she was—one of the leading ladies of St. Louis society. Dressed all in bronze satin, she resembled the statue of Thomas Hart Benton in Lafayette Park.

  Jemmy handed Sassy her own opera glasses. Sassy would want to gawk at Ed Butler. Naturally, she would not have remembered to bring her own theatre glasses.

  She whispered in Jemmy’s good ear. “Boss Butler does look the tough customer. How exciting!”