A Discovery at Vonville: A St. Clair Mystery

by L.C. Warman

Synopsis

After a contentious debate, a secluded family holds an open house to finally sell their estate. But when one among them suddenly dies, the tragedy threatens to unravel the secrets that bind them together.

***

Deborah, Patricia, and Elizabeth have lived together at the Vonville estate for decades. Of the three sisters, only Patricia has ever ventured out into the world in her adulthood: after a brief failed marriage, Patricia showed up on the doorstep of the Vonville home, light on belongings and lighter on details.

But years later, the eldest sister Deborah agrees to Patricia's demands to sell the family estate and divide the proceeds. Elizabeth, the youngest, is devastated, all the more so because her sisters seem to be holding something back from her.

The open house fills quickly: the sisters' real estate agent, Jack Randall, arrives, followed soon after by a young couple that falls desperately in love with the house, a thoughtful older real estate developer and his assistant—and then a ghost from the sisters' past that leaves Deborah shaken.

Within hours, one among them is dead. And unless those who remain can unravel the secrets of the Vonville family, someone among them may be next.

A DISCOVERY AT VONVILLE is a standalone St. Clair mystery novel. Other St. Clair mysteries include:
•A DEATH AT EASTWICK
•A SCANDAL AT EASTWICK
•A BETRAYAL AT EASTWICK
•A MURDER AT MORLOCK

Praise for L.C. Warman's works:

“Captivating” -Kirkus Reviews

“An intriguing blend of realism and reflection, unsettling discoveries and natural consequences” -Foreword Reviews

About
L.C. Warman is the author of the St. Clair mystery series. She grew up in New England, in a town where real estate contracts stipulated that you couldn't back out if you discovered your new place was haunted. She currently lives in a Michigan lakeside town with her husband and two dogs.

Release date: March 16, 2021

Publisher: Greenleaf & Plympton

Print pages: 268

Sample

The Vonville estate rested, watchful and crypt-like, on the shore of the lake.

 

It was tastefully large, with a drawing room, dining room, living room, and guest room on the first floor, and six airy bedrooms on the second. The back rooms had a view of the lake obscured only by a few maple trees, which in fall would turn as red as the sunrise that always cast its spell over the house. The house had fine bones, but it was outdated: green-patterned wallpaper covered the walls, the kitchen was slender and narrow and cut off from the rest of the house, and the carpeting was the kind of spongy blue that, the owners often joked, had “gone out of fashion with the horse and buggy.”

 

The house lacked other important amenities, like central air and an alarm system, that had become essential to St. Clair houses in the years since it was first built. If it had changed hands in the past five decades, no doubt the owners would have updated it; as it was, the house was carefully preserved in the past, as though suspended in resin. The furniture was old. The curtains were out of style. And the inhabitants themselves had not changed—barring a few unpleasant hiccups.

 

Deborah Vonville puckered her pruned lips and looked over the listing that the real estate agent had sent her. She was seated at the dining room table, coffee steaming in a china cup next to her, the saucer beneath it chipped from some accident long ago that she was certain was her sister Patricia’s fault. Deborah ran one finger over the page she had printed off of the computer (and this time she had done it without Elizabeth’s help!), clucking her tongue and circling bits in red ink.

 

When she had finished her coffee and had gone over the paper a second time, Deborah rose and walked back to the kitchen, where she picked up the landline phone, dialing the numbers with grim determination.

 

Her realtor answered on the third ring. “Jack Randall.”

 

“It’s all wrong,” Deborah said. “You’ll have to start over.”

 

A scuffle on the other end. Deborah imagined the realtor shooting a disapproving glare at whichever underling had written the stupid thing. A smooth voice followed. “Deborah, is that you? What a pleasure to hear from you!”

 

Deborah swallowed, her chest tightening. She did not like talking on the phone. She did not like talking to anyone at all—she left that mostly to Patricia and to Elizabeth, though neither had been reliable lately. She supposed she’d have to get used to talking to more people, especially after the house sold, but she didn’t like to think of that right now. “Yes, thank you,” she said finally, stiffly.

 

“And did you say something about the listing? We can change it, of course. It’s whatever you think is best.”

 

“You called the house an ‘investment property.’”

 

“It’s a fantastic investment.”

 

“And said that it ‘could be designed into whatever vision you have.’”

 

“Yes, it had wonderful bones.”

 

“And that it ‘requires updating.’”

 

“Well,” Jack said, after a pause. “I’d say all houses require updating about every fifteen years, at least. When was the last time your estate was renovated?”

 

He made the words sound innocent, but Deborah felt her chest squeeze again. “Classics don’t need to be updated.”

 

Another pause. Deborah’s heart picked up a beat. She regretted calling. Why hadn’t she sent a tersely worded email? That was right, because Patricia had logged her out of her account on the downstairs computer. Deborah couldn’t remember her password, which really wasn’t too much of a concern since she hardly ever used email, but then she was forced to deal with such nonsense as this. She’d have to make Elizabeth help her reset it later. Where had that silly girl gone off to?

 

“Deborah,” Jack said finally. “Your house is gorgeous—like I told you, it’s one-of-a-kind. Lakefront views, classic style, an impressive lot. Anyone would be lucky to have it. And someone will be very lucky to have it. These descriptions—they’re just worded to attract the right kind of buyer. And to help people envision what it might look like to own such a home. Everyone wants to put their own stamp on things, no matter how perfect a place is. The description just helps them see the house as a canvas.”

 

But it’s not a canvas, Deborah wanted to say. It’s not a canvas at all. It’s perfect just the way it is, and if you change it then you’ll destroy it. The walls will come crumbling down and the house will go up in flames. It’s not meant to exist any other way than it is. 

 

It’s not meant to exist without US.

 

Deborah took a deep breath. For of course that was what she was thinking: the selling of the house was really a ceremony celebrating the death of the place. Soon the Vonville estate would no longer belong to the Vonvilles. Soon the keys and the grounds would pass into the hands of someone who did not deserve them, who would not care for the corner garden the way that Deborah had, who did not appreciate morning coffee on the back deck as the sun rose over the gray-blue water (the trick was to bring sunglasses and angle yourself parallel to the house, so you could still enjoy the brilliant colors without being blinded), who didn’t understand the bumps and creaks and whines and idiosyncrasies of the place that had grown old with Deborah. She was eighty-three now, which meant that she had been in the house just seventeen years short of a century. Was it too late to cancel the sale? Too late to tell Jack Randall that she was going to die in the house, that she had made a terrible mistake? Part of her wondered if Jack Randall already feared that she would back out, knew that she was flighty and her decision unsecured.

 

But she was breathing heavily on the phone now. Jack was waiting for an answer. The silence unspooled between them, and Deborah’s hand began to shake. She imagined him frowning on the other end of the line, making eye contact with some coworker that she could not see and rolling his eyes as he pointed contemptuously to his sleek cell phone. Didn’t Jack know that cell phones caused brain cancer? She wondered if she should tell him.

 

“Well, goodbye, then,” Deborah said. She hung up.

 

She stared at the phone for a few seconds, until her heart rate slowed and her breathing resumed something resembling normalcy. Then Deborah leaned forward, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes, and wondered where the past month had all gone so wrong.

 

She knew, of course. She knew it went back to The Fight. And a fear so large it drowned her came flooding through Deborah’s veins. She couldn’t breathe again.