Her eyebrows moved together.

“It’s a familiar …”

Addis gave her a moment. Her face eased. She did not make the connection.

“A retarded man. Convicted of killing a convenience store owner in Louisiana and got the death sentence—”

“And President Hanover flew back,” she interrupted.

“Yes. But he wasn’t President then. It was during the campaign.”

“I remember.”

They reached Addis’s house. He stepped inside first and felt something beneath his foot. Cat shit, he knew. He hit the light switch.

“Watch out where you walk,” he said.

On a table was a note. He read it and gave it to Lancette.

“It’s from Samantha,” he said. “She’s twelve, lives next door. She takes care of the cat when I’m gone.”

“I fed Eric,” the note said. “But he’s in a bad mood. Maybe you shouldn’t go away so much. Or maybe you should get another cat. Samantha.”

Addis guided Lancette to the living room couch. He then headed to the kitchen to retrieve paper towels and stain remover. The cat was not in sight.

“Do you think,” Lancette shouted at him, “she meant that you should replace your cat or that you should get an additional one so he’d have company?”

“Good question,” he said on the way to the front hallway.

“She’s a pistol,” Addis said, as he cleaned the mess. “The other day she asked me if I believed in God. I said, ‘Mostly.’ She didn’t like that. I could tell. She then asked if I wanted to marry a woman who believed in God. I said I’d like to marry a woman who had some faith. Then she said, ‘Would you marry a woman who didn’t believe in God but who went to church anyway?’”

“What did you say?”

“I said there are a lot of reasons for going to church. Some people go because they know what they’re going to find. Some people go to look. And she said, ‘But wouldn’t she be a phony?’ I said, not if she knew the difference between the two.”

“So when you’re not running the world, you assist young girls in their spiritual development,” Lancette said.

Addis passed through the living room on his way back to the kitchen.

“Everyone needs a hobby.”

Damn, he thought, she’s good. I’ve missed this.