Squeeze Me

Kiki’s funeral is held at her estate on Cape Cod. All the Potussies charter a plane and attend the memorial service. The President sends the Vice President to represent him there and deliver a eulogy. The VP obliges: “The VP then launched into seven-and-a-half minutes of stock diatribe about the immigration crisis, citing Kiki Pew’s death as worst-case proof of the dark menace lurking on the edge of America’s borders” (133-34).

Back in Florida, Crosby is reviewing videocam footage from the night of Kiki’s disappearance. While the camera doesn’t pick up her image on the grounds, it does show a white Chevy Malibu SuperSport arriving on the third morning afterward. Crosby also peruses an autopsy report suggesting that Kiki died of crush injuries. Sadly, no other evidence will be forthcoming since the SuperSport has been scrapped and Kiki has been cremated.

That evening, Angie is planning a dinner with her stepson when she receives a call to remove some mice from a country club. Joel cheerfully agrees to go along for the ride. When they arrive, Angie realizes that this is an ambush. She tells Joel to run. Both hastily exit her truck before it is firebombed. She assumes the culprit is Pruitt but later discovers that he’s been locked up in jail.

Meanwhile, Ryskamp goes to interview Diego, now convinced of the young man’s innocence. From his Secret Service team, he learns that the First Lady is sleeping with Keith. His colleagues convince him to have a talk with the junior agent to discourage the romance.

Uric waits in Teabull’s office for his payout, briefly contemplating how he turned to a life of crime. He had none of the usual excuses of childhood trauma to blame: “In reality, Uric’s transition from working-class citizen to career felon was nothing more mysterious than unbound laziness, and the appeal of setting his own casual hours” (146). Instead of receiving the expected payout, Uric is escorted out of Teabull’s office by two beefy security guards. They drive him to a nearby bridge, slip a noose around his neck, and hang him to death.

When Crosby and his team go to stake out the bank, Uric never shows up. Angie surmises that something bad must have happened to him. Back in Teabull’s office, the manager pays off the arsonist he hired to burn Angie’s truck. He hopes the incident will scare her away from investigating the crime any further. This proves not to be the case since Angie poses as a paralegal and goes to interview Diego herself. The immigrant is frightened by the continuous hostile protests outside the jail. Angie promises to find a way to free him.

Angie is called to meet Crosby and Ryskamp at a crime scene. When she arrives, she sees Uric hanging from a bridge. His vehicle is nearby, and the scene has been staged to look like a suicide. A note is found in which Uric claims responsibility for the deaths of Kiki and Prince.

Just as the three investigators begin to hope they can clear Diego with this evidence, the President springs another unwelcome media surprise. He sends out a message on Twitter claiming that Uric and Prince were acting as Diego’s accomplices. The Potussies receive this news with joy as Fay Alex reads the entire post aloud to the assembled group. They react in a frenzy: “Once the Twitter presentation was finished, the gathering dissolved into a nasal cacophony of overlapping conversations that from outside the Poisonwood Room must have sounded like crows on a road kill” (161).

That evening, Angie agrees to go on a date with Ryskamp but invites Crosby along so they can all discuss the case. Both men are convinced that Diego will remain in jail as long as POTUS can get political mileage out of his illegal alien invasion theory. They believe the controversy will die down the minute he shifts his attention elsewhere. Angie isn’t convinced. She wants to use Uric’s fake suicide note to free Diego. In it, Uric says that Diego played no part in the murders. Angie intends to leak the note to a major news outlet. She also convinces Ryskamp to have a talk with the state’s attorney about dropping the case against Diego. She promises to sleep with the Secret Service agent once Diego is free.

Late at night on March 13, a fisherman named Ajax Huppler drives his boat too close to the perimeter of Casa Bellicosa. Secret Service agents swarm aboard to investigate the intrusion. They don’t find Ajax. Instead, they see a large python coiled up on deck.

The lights and noise on the water near the complex arouse the interest of Mockingbird. She calls Keith for information. He doesn’t have any but promises to rush right over. Ryskamp intercepts the junior agent on his way for a late-night tryst and tells Keith that sleeping with the First Lady is a bad idea. Keith says they’re in love. He insists that news of the affair will never reach the President: “Paul, this thing between her and me won’t ever get out because it can’t […] His people in the White House will do whatever it takes to keep a rumor like this buttoned up—and that includes paying off the tabloids (176).” Ryskamp remains skeptical.

The following morning, Angie is called in to deal with the snake on the boat, which has been killed by the Secret Service agents. She notes that this is another Burmese python, but it hasn’t dined on Ajax. Angie believes the snake was merely looking for a place to nap and that the fisherman jumped overboard to avoid it. She removes the carcass and goes about her business.

Her ploy to leak Uric’s suicide note to the press has backfired. The President claims that the note was faked because Uric feared retaliation against his family from Diego’s terrorist gang. The President’s supporters are still stirred up by fears of the border menace. Angie goes to visit Diego to reassure him, but he remains in jail with demonstrators outside his cell calling, “No More Diegos!”

After her visit, she has dinner with her friend Spalding. He is celebrating because he received a fat commission for sourcing two large conch pearls from South Africa. Keith is the buyer. He intends to give them to Mockingbird as an early birthday gift. Spalding says rumors of the affair are now spreading through the Winter White House.

Chance and Chase Cornbright are in a hurry to spend their inheritance. While the two are out recklessly riding jet skis on the Intracoastal Waterway, both collide with the dead body of Ajax. The Cornbrights sustain injuries but are lucky to be alive at all. It appears that Ajax drowned sometime after he abandoned his boat to escape the python.

Meanwhile, Angie is waking up in bed with Ryskamp after their first night together. Their romantic mood is spoiled almost immediately when Angie proposes that Ryskamp help Diego by using the First Lady’s affair with Keith as leverage. The agent refuses to help and leaves. Later that day, Angie meets with Crosby. He informs her that Teabull has been fired because of all the bad publicity he attracted to Lipid House over Kiki’s demise. He has since left the state.

Angie then tries to enlist Crosby’s help, just as she earlier tried to recruit Ryskamp. He reacts badly: “‘Are you kidding?’ Angie laid out her plan, step-by-step, then whispered, ‘Your job would be totally safe. All you’ve got to do is hook me up with the right person at Casa Bellicosa’” (194). Crosby is just as shocked as Ryskamp because what Angie is proposing is illegal.