Another thought occurred to him, then, as he stared at the place where the bomb had been. If she had found it, she must want to know who had set it. So far, he thought he had managed to keep his trail clean. The cops didn’t consider him enough of a suspect to watch. But what about Talldeer? Could she be watching now?

He got to his feet and dusted his hands off, then moved to another area of the roped-off section, trying to look as if he were checking the entire corner for artifacts that might have turned up as the soil settled or something. He even brushed at the surface a bit, as if he were looking for something. The coarse, sandy soil came apart as he touched it, breaking down into dust. He’d have a hell of a time getting the stuff off his pants.

At least she wouldn’t be getting any prints off the pouch or the bomb. While he didn’t exactly have a criminal record, he didn’t want to take a chance on finding out his prints were on file somewhere. The government had files on everybody, and with all the computers around these days they were probably doing searches via computer. There was always a chance someone, somewhere, in some law-enforcement agency, had filed a set of his prints away. Hell, the local cops might even have them. They’d certainly taken a set of prints after they’d dusted the remains of the dozer after the explosion. Would she get access to that file? She might, if she had friends in the department.

After taking his time with his bogus examination, he rose to his feet, brushed as much of the dust off his pants as he could, and finally headed back to the site office as the first of the men arrived, lunchpails in hand. He nodded to them as they came in, just enough that they knew he recognized them, not enough to encourage familiarity.

He retired to his office and sat down at his desk; drumming his fingers restlessly on the blotter, he watched the men arrive, and listened to the phone ring in the secretary’s room. She was certainly fielding a lot of calls this morning.

He was annoyed, to say the least. The Talldeer bitch was smarter than he had given her credit for. And what was she going to do with his little surprise? Obviously she was smart enough to disarm it and then take it away, presumably to check for prints. Was she smart enough to realize that it could be used as evidence without prints on it? He hoped not. …

Or did she take it because she thought some of her own people might have set it, and she didn’t want to leave any more evidence of sabotage for the law to find?