They Never Came Home

by Lois Duncan

  “There it is! Over there!” Joan spoke suddenly beside him. “Four twenty-seven! See, Frank—on the corner!”

  “Where? That place over there?” Frank came back to the present with a jolt. “That can’t be the shop. It looks like somebody’s garage.”

  “It’s not though—see the sign? El Mercado—there in red over the doorway.” Joan leaned forward. “Look, they’ve even got a little parking lot.”

  “That will help, anyway.”

  Twisting the wheel as far as he could, Frank began to inch the car up the narrow dirt driveway into the parking area at the back of the building.

  He locked the car with care, conscious of the curious glances of the crowd of grimy children playing along the edge of the gutter.

  Joan was beginning to look worried.

  “You’re right about this not looking like a jewelry store. Do you suppose I could have got the wrong name and street number?”

  “Well, we’ll find out,” Frank told her. With a last uncertain glance at the car, he led the way around the corner of the building to the front entrance.

  The interior of the shop was poorly lighted and dusty, and a clutter of odd tin lanterns and plastic figures hung in clusters from the low ceiling. Along the walls stood a collection of pots and dishes of assorted colors, many of them chipped so that the clay showed through the shine of the glaze, and beyond them rose a pile of rickety wooden chairs with woven seats, piled one on top of another in a precarious structure that seemed to dare anyone to ask to purchase other than the topmost one.

  The rest of the room contained wooden tables piled high with charms and trinkets of the quality usually found in a typical souvenir shop, with prices marked in pesos rather than cents and dollars. There were no customers in the shop, nor did there seem to be a proprietor.

  Frank saw on Joan’s face a reflection of the same doubt that he knew must show on his own.

  “It must be the wrong place,” she said in a low voice. “This isn’t a jewelry shop, and there’s nobody—”

  There was a movement against the back wall, and a man emerged from the shadows.

  “May I help you, please?”

  The English words were spoken with a heavy Spanish accent.

  “We’re here because—that is, Mr. John Brown from Las Cruces sent us,” Joan said uncertainly. “We were to pick up some things for him. I don’t know though—I think maybe we’ve come to the wrong place.”

  “Mr. Brown from Las Cruces?” The man’s eyes flickered from one face to the other. “May I ask your names, please?”

  “I’m Joan Drayfus,” Joan said more firmly. “My brother, Larry, used to work for Mr. Brown. This is a friend of mine, Frank Cotwell. He drove me down from Las Cruces.”

  “You’re Larry’s sister?” The little eyes regarded her with what seemed to be new interest. “We read about his disappearance in the El Paso paper. A tragic thing. They have never found a trace, have they?”

  “No,” Joan said shortly.

  “Terrible. Terrible. May I offer my sympathy?”

  “Thank you.”

  The man shifted his attention to Frank. “And you, Mr. Cotwell, you were nice enough to drive the young lady? Where, please, have you parked your car?”

  “In your lot, behind the shop.” Frank was surprised at the question. “It will be safe there, won’t it?”

  “We will make sure that it is. I will have my boy keep an eye on it. There has been some looting around this neighborhood recently. Once the schools are closed for the summer the children cannot find enough to do for themselves.” The man went over to a doorway in the back of the shop and called up a stairway. “José? I have a special customer here. Will you go out to the lot and keep an eye on his automobile?”

  He paused, and turned back to Frank.

  “The make of the car, please?”

  “It’s a Chevrolet.”

  “A Chevrolet, José,” he called, and then added a sentence in Spanish.

  “Si, Papa.”

  The voice that answered was neither a child’s nor an adult’s; it was a cracked, adolescent voice, much as Frank’s own had been the year before. There was the sound of footsteps, and a slight, black-haired boy came hurrying down the stairway. He gave Joan and Frank a quick, curious glance before slipping past them and out through a side door.

  “José will keep watch on it. He is a good boy. You will now come with me, please?” The man turned and led the way past the stairway, through a curtain-covered doorway that led into a back room.

  The second room, which appeared to be a storeroom of sorts, was as dusty and cluttered as the front one, with boxes and crates piled from one wall to the other. A table at the back held a metal case, and it was to this that the man went. Removing a key from his pocket, he unlocked the case and with great care slid out the inside drawer. From this he withdrew a necklace and a pin.

  For a long moment he stood holding them as though loath to let them out of his possession. Then he turned to Joan.

  “Would you like to see these before I wrap them?”

  “Oh yes.” She crossed the room to stand beside him, bending to examine the two pieces on the flattened palm. There was a pause. Then she said, “They’re—they’re very nice.”

  “They are beautiful,” the man corrected her firmly. “They will be a great item in the States.”

  Frank’s curiosity got the best of him. “Could I see too?”

  He moved up until he could see the jewelry over Joan’s shoulder. It was silver and turquoise, as most of the Mexican jewelry was. The necklace was of a simple sunburst design. The pin appeared to be a close reproduction of those that Dan had purchased on that shopping trip four years before to give away as birthday gifts.

  To Frank’s uneducated eyes, there seemed nothing unique about either piece. The silver pin his mother had at home was more graceful and attractive than these.

  “I guess I don’t know jewelry,” he said awkwardly.

  “It takes study and knowledge to judge anything properly,” the proprietor told him.

  The boxing and wrapping of the two small pieces took a quarter of an hour. Standing impatiently in the heat of the windowless room, Frank found it impossible to understand how the mere wrapping and tying of a simple parcel could be so time-consuming. The man wrapped it first in cotton, then in paper, then in a cardboard box, then in paper again. When he had the job completed at last, he excused himself and disappeared up the stairway to what was evidently the living quarters above the shop in search of the designs themselves.

  “You’d think he’d have had it all ready for us, wouldn’t you?” Joan said in a low voice.

  “This whole thing is crazy,” Frank said irritably. “What did you think of that jewelry? Is that something every store in New York is going to be howling for?”

  “It looked pretty ordinary to me,” Joan admitted. “But, then, we don’t know about such things. Maybe we see too much silver out here and people in other parts of the country are more impressed with it.”

  “The original Indian designs are nicer than those,” Frank said. “The kind of stuff they peddle on street corners. What is it about those two pieces that makes them special enough for all this intrigue?”

  “I don’t know any more than you do,” Joan said. She reached up a hand and pushed her damp hair back from her forehead. “Don’t you suppose we could wait out in the front room as well as in here?”

  “I don’t see why not.” Frank shoved the curtain aside and held it for her to pass through. He could feel the perspiration sliding in rivulets down his neck beneath the light material of his cotton shirt.

  As they stepped into the outer room of the shop, the boy, José, was entering through the side door from the parking lot. He slid past them with the agility of an eel and mounted the stairway after his father.

  “I thought he was supposed to be out there watching the car,” Frank said. “Dan will never forgive me if …”

  The words faded off a
nd silence fell empty behind them.

  When he spoke again, it was almost apologetically.

  “I still keep thinking about it as Dan’s car. He was so proud of it.”

  “I know. Still”—Joan tried to smile—“it’s your car now. He would have wanted it to be. And your using it to drive me down here—he would have liked that.”

  There were footsteps on the stairs, and José’s father appeared as suddenly as he had vanished. He was carrying the wrapped parcel and a thick envelope.

  “Here you are.” He handed them to Joan. “Here, too, is a sales receipt for you to show when you go through customs.”

  “What,” Frank asked, “if the people at customs want to inspect the package?”

  “They may do so, of course,” the man said easily. “There should be no problem at all. You are taking back only two pieces of jewelry, both priced well below your quota. You will be able to make many such trips before there is any question raised.”

  “According to Mr. Brown, we should be coming down fairly regularly,” Joan said. “Maybe as often as every two weeks. Will there be new designs each time?”

  “Mr. Brown, our Las Cruces representative, will inform you as things are ready.” After detaining them for so long, now suddenly the man seemed anxious to terminate all conversation. He stepped forward and held the door for them, and a moment later they were plunged into the brilliance of the outside world.

  The sun struck blindingly across their faces and a million odors leapt to their nostrils. Their ears were filled with a multitude of sounds—the drone of flies, the shrill yapping of a dog, the shouts and laughter of children, the monotonous chant of street peddlers with their trays of tacos and enchiladas.

  Before them on the lot, the car was still safely parked where they had left it, the doors locked, the windows intact.

  “I worry too much,” Frank said.

  “You do, Frank. You really do.” Joan reached out and touched the smooth paint of the fender. “See, none of those children have even touched it.”

  “It’s this whole business,” Frank said slowly. “I don’t understand it. That’s the thing, Joan—there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with it, and yet it doesn’t make sense. I worry when I don’t understand things.”

  “Well, don’t think I’m going to continue with it after I get Larry’s debt paid off,” Joan said. “I’m glad you came with me today. That man—that whole grubby little shop—gives me the creeps.”

  They got into the car, and Frank cast a last quick glance at the second-story windows that looked out over the parking lot. He had a faint, uncomfortable feeling that the eyes of José and his father were focused upon them as he turned the key in the ignition and started the engine.

  TEN

  “PEGGY! PEGGY, DAVE’S HERE!” Mrs. Richards’ voice floated up from the downstairs hallway.

  “I’ll be down in just a minute, Mom! Tell him to wait!”

  In the little room at the end of the hall, Peggy Richards glanced frantically around for her mascara.

  Sprawled on one of the twin beds in the room they shared, her fourteen-year-old sister Sarah regarded her with amusement.

  “Tell him to wait? You know he’s going to wait with the twins down there. They’ll be attached to him like weights, one on each knee, and Ginger’s probably piggyback on his shoulders.”

  “If that’s so,” Peggy said wryly, “I’ll never be able to pry him out of the living room. Those kids act like he’s heaven’s gift to the Richards family.”

  “I know somebody else who acts the same way,” Sarah said teasingly.

  “Don’t be so silly.”

  “When you get up at six o’clock on Sunday morning to wash your hair and do your makeup before going to the beach, I’d say that was a sign of something.”

  Peggy shot her sister an irritated glance and sighed in relief as she located her bag of cosmetics. The frustrating thing was that Sarah, as usual, was right. It was ridiculous to take pains with your hair and makeup when your date was to go swimming. Still, she desperately wanted Dave to think she was pretty.

  You’re an idiot, Peg Richards, she told herself helplessly, letting a boy you hardly know turn you inside out like this. True, you’re not exactly a glamor girl, but with classes starting at the college in a couple of weeks, you’ll be meeting plenty of cool guys. There will be proms and football games and fraternity parties, and you’ll get asked to them, just the way you were last year. Why do you have to go all soft in the head about some oversized redhead who sells sporting goods in a department store!

  She knew as she asked the question that she would have no answer for it, and she reached for a comb, smiling ruefully at her reflection in the mirror before her. From the first moment she had met Dave Carter, sprawled there on that beach towel, the freckles bright against his nose, his eyes squinted against the sun, all the other boys she had ever known had faded into nothing. It had taken her twenty minutes of careful planning before she worked her nerve up enough to walk over to him and ask him the time. It was the first time she had ever done such a thing, and she had worried all the way home that he might think back on it later and decide that she was too forward and never make any effort to call her or look her up at all.

  The worry had been unnecessary, for he had turned up at the Green Cove two nights later. She had glanced up from the table she was clearing and had seen him there in the doorway, and relief had washed through her. It had taken her a moment to steady herself enough to cross the room to him and say lightly, “Dave, hello!”

  “Hello, miss.” He had regarded her with mock seriousness. “I’m looking for a gal in a green swimsuit. Has she been in here tonight?”

  “Not that I’ve noticed,” Peggy told him happily, “but if you’ll sit down, I’ll bring you some coffee, and maybe we can wait for her together.”

  They had sat over coffee and talked that evening until the manager had finally told them wearily that he had to lock the doors for the night. When she thought back on it, Peggy realized that it was she and not Dave who had done most of the talking. He had sat across from her, smiling and interested, asking questions, laughing at her stories, seeming fascinated by the antics of her big, fatherless family. He had volunteered little, however, about his own background. Even now, after dating him for two months, she knew only that he came from New York and lived at the Royal Palm with his younger brother.

  Still, she thought reasonably, it wasn’t as though they had spent a lot of time alone together where confidences would come out easily. Their working hours did not coincide, and she was reporting at the Green Cove at almost the same moment Dave was leaving Bartell’s. The only time they really had to date was on Sunday, and this was family day at the Richards’. From the first moment Dave had walked in the door, he had been absorbed in the turmoil. From Sarah through the eight-year-old twins to five-year-old Ginger, he had been welcomed warmly and enthusiastically as an addition to the family.

  “Dave must come from a big family himself,” Mrs. Richards had commented one time, “to fit in so well. He seems to really enjoy having the twins climb all over him.”

  “I think he comes here as much to see the children,” Sarah had commented mischievously, “as he does to see Peggy.”

  For Peggy, the comment had struck home a little too closely for comfort. Although she knew it was ridiculous, it did sometimes seem to her that Dave Carter got as much pleasure out of the noisy brood of romping youngsters as he did out of being alone with her. In fact, on the few occasions when they did get out together, it was very often with the twins tagging along behind them and Ginger perched high on Dave’s broad shoulders.

  Well, not today, she thought now, giving her lashes a final sweep with the mascara wand and glancing about for her cover-up to pull on over her swimsuit. Today they can beg all they want to, and I’m not going to give in. A date is a date, whether it’s to a dance or just to the beach, and the kids have got to learn to respect that.

 
“See you later,” she said briskly to Sarah, and then added, as an afterthought, “You might take a couple of hours and clear some things out from under your bed today. It’s shoved so high off the floor now that pretty soon you’re going to have to get on and off it with a stepladder.”

  Despite her firm intentions, getting herself and Dave out of the house without an escort of adoring children proved to be a lengthy and exhausting procedure. It was only after promises to “bring him back for dinner” and “to play Monopoly later” that it was accomplished.

  When they were finally out on the sidewalk, headed for the beach, Dave was still laughing about the fort the twins had under construction in the back yard.

  “They’ve got everything in the world nailed onto it,” he said in amusement. “Boards and ladders and old chair backs and tin cans. It’ll take a bulldozer to knock the thing down when they’re ready to dismantle it.”

  “Well, that’s boys for you!” Peggy laughed with him. “Were you that way too, Dave? Did you build a fort when you were a little boy?”

  “I … don’t know.” Suddenly the laughter was gone from his voice. “I guess I must have. All kids do, don’t they?”

  It was one of those odd moments that occurred so often between them. They could be chatting away easily and happily about almost anything and suddenly there would be some comment, some remark or question, never anything important or even very personal, and the atmosphere would change. She would feel him leave her, not physically, of course, but emotionally; it was like a curtain dropping down behind his eyes, shutting him away from her.

  Where are you, she longed to call to him. What are you thinking? I’m here right beside you! Reach out to me! Tell me! Whatever it is, let me share it with you!

  The fact that she never did so was, she knew, a mark of cowardice. She was afraid that, if she asked him, she might learn the answer, and that it would be something she would wish afterward she did not know. Another girl, for instance. As attractive as Dave was, there must surely have been a number of girls over the years. Even now, there could easily be others. Just because they spent their Sundays and occasional late after-work hours together, just because he seemed contented and happy in the Richards’ home, it didn’t mean that he didn’t see other girls also. There were all those evenings when she was at work at the Green Cove. Surely he didn’t just go back to a one-room apartment and read a book.