Murder at the Blue Boar Inn: A Jim Kirkwood Novel

By B. Eugene Ellison

Shortly after midnight, the blood-soaked body of Sean Makers, the owner of the Blue Boar Inn was found dead; he had been murdered. These are the facts; the question is who did it.

In the latest Jim Kirkwood adventure/mystery novel, Murder at the Blue Boar Inn, Jim, a self-indulgent, self-confident, and at times unsympathetic, connoisseur of human nature finds himself endeavoring to uncover the identity a cold-blooded killer, or killers from a cast of employees and patrons.

Murder at the Blue Boar Inn is an Agatha Christie style waltz of suspects, ranging from a beautiful and mysterious woman, whom Jim almost met on the train, to the drunken prime suspect. In Murder at the Blue Boar Inn, Jim Kirkwood must overcome deception, and lies as he interlaces the unrelated into the "fabric of truth" and uncovers the murderer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 10, 2005
• ISBN: 9780595790647

B. Eugene Ellison

B. Eugene Ellison, FSA Scot., lives in Knoxville, TN. with his wife Susan. After a career in Engineering, Gene now enjoys: writing, painting and travel. The Rings of the Templars is his second Jim Kirkwood adventure novel.

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Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

About the Author

To the Owner, Employees, and Patrons of the real Blue Boar Inn, Temple Grafton, Warwickshire, England: who never killed anyone; as far as I know. Everything in this book about them and their lives is totally fiction.

To Susan: the love of my life who lovingly endures my slipping back and forth between reality and my literary worlds of make believe.

CHAPTER 1

The truth is, I never know how things are going to end. Usually, the only thing I’m sure of is how and when they started. This time was different. Without forewarning, like a thunderbolt on a clear day, I found myself at the heart of a murder mystery, not knowing how I got there: not at first.

The morning after was radiant; it was the third Wednesday, the second full week in June. As I recall, the first notion to form in my mind was that I didn’t want to wake up. Unusual for me, it was as if my body was trying to resist fate. After a few moments of foggy semi-consciousness, my psyche suddenly filled with Technicolor scenes of death. Graphic visions exploded in my head like a fast-paced slide show, frame after frame after frame. I remember trying to convince myself that they weren’t real, that the images were the remnants of an outlandish, perverse dream. I assured myself that I could dismiss the images at will if I tried hard enough.

Within a split second, they evaporated like the cool morning mist that forms over a Scottish moor and I was fully awake, eyes staring into the brightness ascending from a tacky skylight retrofitted into the alabaster tinted plaster cathedral ceiling. The brilliance flooded the room, making it impossible to escape the dawn or to return to sleep—even if I had wanted to now.

Rolling out of bed, I firmly planted my feet on the worn oatmeal colored carpet and looked around the small, austere room that I had reluctantly moved into late last night. A low chest of drawers to the right of the bed, no mirror, no window, nightstands either side of the queen size bed, two cheap lamps and on the wall to the left, one forgettable picture of a local hillside. Instinctively I started to run my fingers through my hair, to gain control of sleep’s spiking and disarray, something one does a million times during a lifetime without ever thinking about it; this time I stopped short. I stared at my hands. There before me was the truth, traces of black: the remnants of fingerprint ink. Suddenly I knew all the Technicolor visions were true, and for an instant, the slide show raced out of control again before I could bring it to a standstill.

The red figures of the digital clock setting on the nightstand indicated 6:25. Everything began to fall back into place. Where I was and why and what had happened. It had been a few minutes after midnight, 12:20 or so, just six hours ago, when the owner of the small English B&B where I am staying was murdered just outside my room, and worse, the arrogant young police officer in charge didn’t exhibit the slightest hesitation including my name in his list of people-of-inter-est. He made it quite clear that as far as he was concerned we were all suspects.

A hell of an insult, I might say, since I didn’t do it…yet at the time, strangely invigorating.

My sense of balance was unsure as I got to my feet; a dull headache pressed against my temples. It felt like a hangover, but couldn’t be. I didn’t remember having had more than three drams of scotch last night before everything went to hell. I made my way to the small en-suite bathroom with an unsure swagger, flipped on the light before entering, and stopped before the white porcelain pedestal sink and the small vanity mirror. Everything looked the same; I looked tired. I closed my eyes and mentally reached for details of last night; they came flooding back.

I got into bed somewhere around two, then had tossed and turned, unable to sleep until nearly three-thirty, the best I can remember; that was only three hours ago. No wonder I looked so tired.

How did it start?—It began when we heard the muffled sound of a bloodcurdling scream coming from somewhere upstairs, from the second floor of the inn. After a few seconds of denial and hesitation, I jumped to my feet, followed Jon Jacque and a stranger up the narrow stairs that led to the guest rooms, through the fire door at the upper landing where we encountered a drunk staggering toward the exit that we now filled. He yielded to our advance, falling back against the wall, barely catching himself from falling. Beyond him, down a long hallway that led toward the higher numbered guest rooms stood the woman who had inspected the cleaning of my room this morning. She was dressed in a faded green robe; her hair was in pin curlers. Behind her, as if protected from danger, was her son. Fear seemed to grip her as she stood holding herself, arms crossed as if in an invisible embrace. Jon Jacque turned to the left and then back to the right, past rooms #3 and #4 before entering a short dark passageway ten to twelve feet long; we were close behind. This was the hallway that led to my room. At the end of the hallway were three steps, where the passageway dead-ended; formed a T, so to say, into a shorter, narrower, perpendicular hallway.

Sitting on the floor just beyond the steps in an awkward position, legs crossed as if she had collapsed uncontrollably, was Magdalene, the younger of the two barmaids. She was crying hysterically, her hands covering her face as she rocked back and forth. I glanced to the left, a few feet beyond Magdalene into the manager’s office; the door was half-open. From what I could see, everything looked in place, just as I had seen it earlier in the day. The only light in the room was coming from a small lamp with a green and gold floral shade sitting on the corner of an antique desk. My gaze was drawn to my right, eight feet or so down the hall. Lying against the door to my room, guest room #5, looking like a discarded rag doll, was Sean Makers, the owner and manager of the Blue Boar Inn. There was no question in my mind that he was dead; his were not self-induced wounds; he had been murdered.

The light from the single low-wattage fixture overhead emitted an eerie yellowish tint, casting Sean’s lifeless complexion more beige than paste. There was more blood than I believed possible. The front of his gray and yellow striped shirt was open. Blood covered his chest and the shirt, pooling in his lap and on the carpet beneath him. A pungent smell filled the air, overwhelming the senses. For a moment, I thought I was going to be sick.

A trail of blood leading to the spot where he lay indicated that he had stumbled several feet before going down. Long arcs of red were smeared on my door and the walls where it looked as if Sean had tried to pull himself up. They looked random yet strangely organized as if he had tried to leave a message. From his chest protruded the shiny chrome handle of the letter opener I had used earlier in the day. Sean had been stabbed just to the right of his heart, the blade buried in at least four inches. It was a gruesome sight.

Jon Jacque ran to Sean’s side, I knelt next to the girl and placed a hand on her knee, trying to comfort her. She stopped crying as a blank look came across her face. It was amazing to see her mind detach itself from the horror about her. Within that split second, her body went into shock; I have no idea where her mind went.

As if the king was dead, long live the king, Jon Jacque instantly took control of things, clearing the immediate hallway and crying out orders for someone to call the police. I became aware that there were a number of people gathering on the second floor, all trying to get a look.

In the confusion that followed, I took it upon myself to usher Magdalene through the crowd and downstairs into the comforting arms of Kay, one of the other employees. Before I could return to the second floor, several men suffering from a mob’s mentality were violently manhandling the old drunk, the man who was in the hall upstairs, forcing him into the corner booth in the pub and accusing him of Sean Makers’ death. Someone was shouting his name: Chris.

Things were getting ugly before the collective efforts of those less passionate prevailed and the mob frenzy cooled. I remember yelling for restraint though I don’t remember exactly what I said; Jon Jacque appeared and added in on my side, as did a few others. It was as if I were watching everything from afar, events spinning out of control, then back. As suddenly as it started, an eerie silence fell over everyone, as if the wind had been taken from our sails, and despair set in.

From then until the arrival twenty minutes later of Detective Sergeant Mercer and a team of seven bobbies in five cars, most of the guests spent that time trying to reassure each other that they were innocent; the others waited in silence. I just watched, looking for any telltale signs of guilt.

After the authorities arrived, the cast of players including yours truly were assembled in the dining room for questioning, all except Chris; he had passed out, dead to the world. As I waited my turn to share what little I knew or should I say what little I was willing to share, my mind raced back, trying to relate the unrelated. There had been a number of strange comings and goings. Why hadn’t I become suspicious before—perhaps because I wasn’t trying? For a moment, I mused at the idea that this had been billed as a simple trip, a little R and R.

From this point on, nothing about the Blue Boar Inn was going to be simple. As inconvenient as this was going to be, it could be worse; at least I wasn’t lying in the hall upstairs with a chrome letter opener protruding from my chest.

Reflecting on the totality of the past events, it’s clear that the beginning of this story was two days ago, marked by my arrival at the Blue Boar Inn from Canterbury. It wasn’t until Sean’s untimely demise that I realized that there was an ongoing story at all. Strictly speaking, Sean’s murder, as unfortunate as it was for him, does present a grand who-done-it and I do so love a good mystery. This morning, without trying, I found myself in the middle of a cold-blooded murder, and, frankly, I’m not ashamed to say that I was looking forward to the fun.

CHAPTER 2

I splashed a couple of handfuls of cold water on my face, washed my hands trying to remove the last remnants of ink, brushed down my hair using a little water and decided to skip a shower in favor of looking for answers—mainly, figuring out who killed Sean Makers and why. I dressed casually, a long sleeve shirt and a pullover windbreaker—English mornings were always chilly—and headed downstairs, leaving behind my unimpressive new guest room. Detective Sergeant Mercer had insisted that I move from the best room in the inn, spouting some lame excuse, something about my original home being part of the crime scene. At 6:45 with my hair still damp, I emerged onto the first floor. I was the only one about, or so I thought at first.

The Blue Boar Inn, where the events of last night took place, was your quintessential old English country tavern and inn. It could easily be the personification of every American’s, or should I say Hollywood director’s, idea: boxy, two stories with a high pitched roof, granite stone from the Cotswold Hills, brightly trimmed in rough cut wood painted blue and window boxes filled with multicolored spring flowers. The oldest parts of the building dated back to the 1500’s, although you couldn’t tell it today.

The downstairs was divided into two distinct areas. The more modern consisted of two large, attached rectangular dining rooms fronting a well-appointed modern kitchen, public restrooms and four downstairs guest rooms. The ancient part contained a large pub area divided into a pub dining area, with a centralized bar opening to the hall between the pub dining area and the smaller rustic public drinking room. The hallway that separated the two areas was wide enough to serve as a lounge and waiting area for the dining rooms.

The public drinking room was classic: dark wood paneling, a low ceiling with exposed Tudor style wooden beams, rustic red two-tone carpeting and two bay windows that overlooked a large flagstone courtyard, a magnificent place to enjoy friends and a pint or two. The open patio was about thirty feet square with redwood picnic-style tables under bright blue and white umbrellas, surrounded by a four-foot-high stone planter newly topped with soil and the promise of flowers to come.

The stairs from the second floor must have dated back to the time of Henry VIII. They were narrow and steep just off the lounge hallway, beginning at the end of a short exit corridor and nearly hidden from the view of patrons. Anyone coming or going could easily be missed.

Once downstairs, as I wandered about I realized that I wasn’t alone. Standing at the entrance to the dining room, I could hear sounds coming from the kitchen: dishes clinking, muffled voices. Fresh flowers and breakfast arrangements had been placed at all the dining room tables in preparation for guests. It was as if nothing had happened. Returning through the lounge hallway, I followed the short passage into the public drinking bar; it too was empty; the small stools with their decorative brass legs had been inverted on the tables as if someone had been sweeping the carpet, although I could not imagine when.

Through one of two large bay windows that overlooked the courtyard, something, or I should say someone, caught my eye. I could see a man in a brown suit sitting at one of the tables. Outside was Chief Inspector Calhoun of the Warwickshire Police Division, a man whom I had met last night, several hours before Sean Makers was prematurely sent to meet his maker. On the table before the inspector was an inch thick pile of papers; he was reading the second page of a thin collection that was stapled together. I decided to join him.

Chief Inspector John Calhoun was an average looking man about my age. So average that it challenged the imagination to conjure up any description worthy of the term distinguishing features. I would have hated to be asked to describe him to a police sketch artist. He’s one of those people that you might meet in passing twice a week for years, yet you would be unable to describe him to save your life. He was average: brown hair, not too short, not too long; five-ten: 175 lbs.; total average looks; nothing distinguishing except an English accent, which wasn’t distinguishing here in England. The one thing that I sensed about him was that he was extremely intelligent and considerate—whatever that means. Not that he looked smart or kind; there was just something about him.

As I approached, he put down what he was reading and gestured me to join him.

Come join me, your lordship. He rose only a few inches off the bench as a welcome, then sat back down, not offering a hand.

Just call me Jim. I thought I made that clear last night.

So you did.. Seems you had a little excitement here last evening. We don’t get many…deaths under suspicious circumstances here in Warwickshire. This is serious business.. I know I don’t have to remind you of that?

I refrained from responding for a moment, knowing my tendency to ridicule the obvious. It wasn’t a pretty sight, I replied.

I sat down across from him.

I thought you got your man last night. Everyone here seemed to think old Chris did it. That is his name, isn’t it?

He nodded in agreement.

What’s the matter, not so sure this morning?

What do you think? he asked as he reached into his pocket and withdrew a stick of gum. I watched him open it, fold the stick once, and pop it into his mouth.

I don’t. I didn’t see anything, don’t know anything about the man. Only that he was on the second floor when we got there, but so were several other people. I stared down at the stack of papers in front of the inspector. I told all this to that nice policewoman who took my statement last night. My uncanny ability to quickly read an upside down document once again came in handy as I scanned the statement given by Mary, the head housekeeper and morning cook.

So you did, he said in a soft whisper.

We sat in silence for a few moments as he shuffled through the typed witness reports before him.

When were you assigned to the case? I asked when his search reached halfway through the stack.

Five this morning.

Looks like you’ve been busy.

He nodded yes, then asked me, Did you kill Mr. Makers?

You already know my answer.

He followed with, Do you know who did?

No…I take it then that you don’t think Chris did it?

He chewed his gum rapidly for a moment then spit it into his hand and stuck it to the bottom of the table. I never jump to conclusions.. Chris was very drunk, perhaps too drunk to overcome Mr. Makers. Most interesting is that we didn’t find any blood on his person nor his clothes or the tops of his shoes. We did find traces on the soles of his boot which, if there is a match, would put him at the scene but…considering what I have been told, I would have expected more.

Again, he reached into his pocket and withdrew a stick of gum. Then as before, he folded the stick once and popped it into his mouth.

After a few fast chews he continued, I like to keep an open mind, don’t you? We’re looking into motives. Who else may have wanted or needed to kill Mr. Makers? Murder is usually a personal act.. As for Chris, no one saw him do it, though several people reported that he disappeared around midnight, plenty of time to have perpetrated the deed. Several heard Mr. Pooser.

I looked confused. He nodded knowingly.

Several heard Jon Jacque—JJ tell Chris where Mr. Makers could be found, after which Chris wasn’t seen again until after the murder.

He handed me one of the reports from the stack before him. The paper was thinner than I would have expected, cheap. The typeset reminded me of a manual typewriter, there were several corrections and double overstrikes. It took only a split second to recognize that it was the statement I had given last night. I began reading.

Name: James Kirkwood

Address: Blue Boar Inn, on holiday from Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Occupation:..

Occupation:.. this would be a good time to tell you a little about myself. By now, I’m sure you’re beginning wonder.

My name is James Kirkwood; most people just call me Jim, not much of a stretch. Occupation is always hard to put into words and here’s why. Through an incredible chain of events that I won’t go into now, about twelve years ago, I came into a small fortune, then built on it. It’s no longer small. To the amazement and often amusement of those who care, for the last few years I have spent about half my time milking cash out of my investments and dreaming up schemes to keep the taxman from getting any of it.

This leaves me with time for things I really love: painting, a hobby that I’ve been attempting to master for several years with growing success; and rummaging around looking for the extraordinary, the unusual, and the unexpected, which from time to time has become an adventure in the mildest sense of the word. What would you say? I said .entrepreneur.

One side note, the main reason that I was in the UK this time was to purchase some property in Scotland, made up of two small islands off the western coast of the island of Mull. The estate I bought included a rundown castle, a pair of ghosts (one of whom tried to kill me) and the title of the 20th Baron of Crinan, along with a second minor peerage.

I want to make it clear from the start that I’m not impressed. Titles of the realm mean nothing to me. I figure everyone puts his or her pants on one leg at a time, just as I do. That said, you might find it interesting that in the UK titles of this sort are considered property, just like a cow or piece of farm equipment, and can be sold at the whim of the owner. That is exactly what I intend to do. In the big picture, I paid the bargain basement price of £10,000 for the right to call myself a lord; I’ve been advised that the going rate for a baronage can be as high as £30,000; not a bad ROI everything considered.

On a more personal note, I admit I’m beginning to reach middle age but not old by any stretch of the imagination. It is said that you’re only as old as you feel, and I feel young. At six-foot and 164 pounds, my forty-five years have been good to me. I was educated at the University of Texas, holding a degree in Civil Engineering, specializing in structural, a love that I haven’t indulged in a very long time.

I’m less blonde now than I was in my youth, a strange touch of gray here and there but definitely quite fair with gentle hazel eyes that take on a bluish tint when I’m content. Women have always considered me handsome, but I’m not the kind of person they’d chase. Having a shy side, not in fact forthcoming when it comes to women, I can honestly say that I have never had to fight off the fairer sex, but then again, I’ve never been alone either. Like so many, I guess you might say that when it comes to women, I have individual appeal rather than universal.

It was this individual appeal that brought me here to the Blue Boar Inn, just outside Stratford-upon-Avon, in the midlands of England, two days ago now.

The inn is actually in the town of Temple Grafton, a small hamlet located about three miles outside of Stratford whose history dates back before William the Conqueror and whose only claim to fame, as far as I can figure out, is that William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway here in 1582. The only other reason anyone would care that it is on a map is that it is also the home of the Blue Boar Inn, which is the most popular spot for the locals from miles around and a first rate, highly recommended B&B, at least that is what I have been led to believe.

I checked in about nine-thirty the night before last, owing my presence to a secondhand invitation to dine with an attractive actress whom I had briefly met a little over a week ago and who is currently starring in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of The Taming of the Shrew.

It was during this pursuit of the gentler sex that I first met the chief inspector.

Thinking back on the hours since I arrived, much of what I observed would have meant nothing if the events of the last thirty-six hours hadn’t been punctuated by a murder. In retrospect, I’m surprised that I didn’t see more in the unrelated. I should have spent less time enjoying the bizarre soap opera, thinking of it as being simply ordinary and realized the relevance of the strange interactions. As a connoisseur of human nature, I should have been more observant. For that, I apologize.

Returning to my official statement, I found nothing before me that was technically wrong. Everything I said was there, maybe not in the exact words that I had used, but close enough. It painted a clear picture of how much I wanted the police to know about my involvement and what I knew about the murder and inn. I wasn’t about to tell everything; where’s the fun in that? With a little luck, I might figure out this mystery before they do.

I slid the document back.

Chief Inspector John Calhoun placed it on top of the stack covering the statement given by Jon Jacque Pooser, a stack that surely contained statements from all the cast of strange characters who were present last night.. What I wouldn’t give to get my hands on the lot.

If I’ve counted right, there should be thirteen.

After a quick mental exercise, I remembered that working last night at the inn was Ashley, the bartender, and Jon Jacque, the head of everything; I’m not really sure what all he is in charge of. He seemed to run the show, even when Sean, the owner, was around.

There were two barmaids: Kay and Magdalena, the latter being Romanian. The cook named Thomas, I think that was his name, a big bloke who always looked like he was angry about something. There was the elderly head housekeeper named Mary and her dimwitted son Joey. Joey was a midget, or should I be politically correct and call him a little person. What the hell, I was told that he was a midget, so that’s what we’ll call him, even though he looked more like a dwarf to me. All things considered, I’m sure he didn’t give a statement. That’s seven, including yours truly.

Beyond the staff, there were the other guests: a gas and sewer pipe salesman from Manchester named Colin, in room # 9 and Larry and Phyllis Jones from Berkley, California, in room # 3. They were one strange couple, married, at least for the time being, and both dentists. That’s three more.

Chris, the one they took away, was too drunk to talk, let alone give a statement. He actually worked on or ran a pig farm owned by the recently departed. Then there was the young man who followed me upstairs when the body was discovered and a local and his girlfriend who stayed in the pub, neither of which I remember by name. That makes thirteen, thirteen out of a possible sixteen.

Unaccounted for were Sean’s grown son Robert, a young man with a noticeable limp who came in earlier in the evening and left after making a scene, the aforementioned Joey and then there was Allysone. She’s number sixteen and by far the most interesting. A strikingly beautiful woman, who appeared to be in her mid to late twenties, yet I suspected that she’s much younger. I first saw her on the train coming into Stratford Monday evening. She was working hard at trying to give the impression that she was a high maintenance, high class model: beautiful, sexy and completely consumed with herself. The kind of woman if you had to ask, you couldn’t afford. Kay, the barmaid, told

me that she was Sean’s niece and that she was no good, which made her even better.

Last and perhaps unrelated to the story, there were four other guests registered at the inn: two older couples, one from the London area, the other from somewhere near York. They missed all the fun, having opted to call it a night before eleven. Even with eight guests, Ashley, the bartender, had commented that for a Tuesday night in June, the inn was surprisingly empty; only five of the eleven guest rooms were occupied. That explained, at least on the surface, why there was room for Sean’s two relatives, Allysone and Robert.

Our moment of silence was interrupted by the sound of the opening of the door that led into the inn. I turned to see Kay coming toward us. She stopped at the end of our table.

Good morning, Mr. Kirkwood; would you like a cup of tea or some coffee? The voice was weak. Her puffy eyes glanced at me before falling into a hard stare on the chief inspector then back to me.

Morning.. How are you holding up?

It’s so sad. Sean was such a good man. Everyone loved him. I can’t believe he is dead. What are we going to do? She fought back tears. Why would anyone want to harm him?

From what I knew, I could think of several reasons. I decided to keep that information to myself for the time being.

Everything will be okay, trust me. It was a weak attempt to comfort her. Did you stay here last night? You couldn’t have gotten much sleep. You were still downstairs when I went to bed.

No, I went to me mums. She thought that I should have stayed home today, but I couldn’t. Someone has to help out here. We have to take care of the guests. You understand, Mr. Kirkwood; Sean would have wanted it that way. I couldn’t stay at home.

"I am Chief