Season 1, Episode 13
Game, Set... Muuurder?
1985. Shawn and Gus are playing Battleship. Shawn hits every time, and at the end of the game the two boys get into a fight. Henry hears the commotion, and comes to separate them. Henry gives a lecture on how trust is important in a friendship. He then notices that Shawn didn't put his ships on the board, and punishes Shawn by grounding him, and taking one of Shawn's ships for two months.
In the present Shawn is at the Santa Barbra Police Department asking Julie for a case. Gus is gone for the weekend, and Shawn playfully asks Julie if she has any suggestions on how he could be less lonely. Shawn notices the chief talking with a man in a tracksuit. The man hands the chief a photo, and a newspaper article, both with pictures of a female tennis player. The chief walks into her office with Lassiter, who asks her for the case. The chief is reluctant, as Lassiter has a full case load, and just before she can say yes Shawn stumbles into the office with a scarf over his eyes. Shawn guesses that a tennis player is missing, and the chief allows him on the case. Deanna Sirtis is missing, her father was going to meet her at the airport before she left for Tokyo, but she never arrived. The last time she was seen was at practice that morning. Shawn spots a article about a stalker following a tennis player in the case file, and (lifting a finger to his head.) asks if anyone has checked Deanna's stalker. Julie says that they've been looking into him, but the chief cuts her off to tell Shawn to psychically follow Deanna while Lassiter follows conventional leads. Shawn is excited to be (sort of) working with Lassiter, and as everyone leaves the room to work on the case, Lassiter turns and sarcastically thanks the chief.
After the credits, we fade on on Gus at a pharm-rep team building exercise. He gets a call from Shawn, who asks about Deanna. Gus establishes that Deanna is a globally ranked tennis player, but he is far more interested in participating in the weekends activities. Gus thinks that if he can suck up to his boss over the course of this weekend team-building camp he stands a good chance of getting assigned a recently vacated, highly profitable, route. Gus is however getting a little tired of the various activities. Shawn says he did something to get Gus some time away, and just then a man walks up and tells Gus to go see his grandmother as she just broke her hip.
At Deanna's room Mr. Sirtis, Deanna's father, talks about his daughter while Gus and Shawn examine a wall of Deanna's photo's. Shawn briefly notes a that Deanna has a picture of a tree on her fingernails. Gus finds a security camera, and Mr. Sirtis explains that they beefed up security after Deanna's stalker broke in. Shawn asks Mr. Sirtis to turn off the cameras as the “spirits” are shy. Shawn and Gus search the room. Gus says seems to think that the security camera indicates that Mr. Sirtis is to controlling. Shawn brushes it off saying that Mr. Sirtis is just a typical sports dad. Shawn opens a box of jewelry, and finds a cheap ring among the more expensive items, Surmising that it must have come from someone without a lot of money. Gus says it's a eternity ring, intended to be worn all the time, and usually given by someone you know intimately. Shawn notes that Deanna must be seeing someone her father doesn't approve of, and if they find this person, they'll find Deanna.
Shawn and Gus find Lassiter leaving a coffee shop by the beach. Shawn says that they've found a lead, but Lassiter isn't interested, saying that he's following real leads. Shawn says that Lassiter needs to start taking their partnership on this case seriously, or else. Just then Henry pulls up in a truck. He's on his way to Goodwill to donate a bunch of stuff that Shawn left at his house. Shawn Lassiter and Gus pick through the items. Gus picks up a “Airwolf” windbreaker, and yells at Shawn for taking it from him, and keeping it for several years. Lassiter picks up a fishing rod. This leads to Henry inviting Lassiter on a fishing trip. Shawn is a little put out, but seems to shake it off quickly. He tells Gus that they're headed to a health club where Deanna was last seen.
At the club Shawn and Gus interview a girl who was practicing the last time Deanna was here. Shawn has Gus play tennis with the girl, while he questions her. The girl tells Shawn that Deanna was interested in a tennis player named Doug Lenmar. Mr. Sirtis told her to end it, and she rebelled by storming off the court. Gus recaps that Doug was probably her secret boyfriend, but they still don't know where Deanna is as Doug is in Tokyo, and Deanna was discovered missing when she didn't show up for a flight to Tokyo. Shawn says they should check to make sure that Doug really is in Tokyo, and if he is there might be someone else that Deanna was seeing. Gus suggests that Deanna is just hiding from her father. Shawn asks where Deanna would hide if that was the case. Shawn notices a poster advertising the clubs new nail designs, one of which is the tree Deanna had on her nails. Shawn and Gus go to the club's spa, and after getting a mani/pedi check the spa's computer, and discover that Deanna did go to the spa the day before. They also find that Deanna ordered some spa products, and had them delivered to a address that isn't her fathers home. Shawn and Gus walk to the address, only to discover police and an ambulance waiting outside. Deanna is wheeled into the ambulance, while Lassiter tells Julie that he wants to talk to her if/when she wakes up. Shawn and Gus ask Julie what happened, and she tells them that this is now a attempted murder case.
Inside the building, which is a apartment, Shawn and Gus look for clues. Shawn notices another piece of crappy jewelry, telling Gus that the poor boyfriend was probably here. A forensic investigator recognizes Shawn as Henry's son, as he took a class that Henry taught at the police academy. Lassiter and Julie enter, Lassiter telling Shawn to watch and see how a real detective operates. Julie explains that they talked to one of Deanna's fellow players, who told them that she would meet with Deanna at a nearby restaurant. They canvassed the neighborhood, and the owner of the apartment building recognized Deanna's photo. Shawn notices some more pictures of Deanna, all taken in the apartment. A tennis trophy in the background of them all that is currently missing. Shawn does his psychic thing, and calls attention to the missing trophy. Julie suggests to Lassiter that it was probably used to attack Deanna. Lassiter thanks Julie for her help, and then tells Shawn and Gus to leave. Shawn notes several more details before leaving. Later Shawn tells Gus, while watching a police alert on Deanna's stalker, that Deanna's attacker was probably her mysterious boyfriend. The apartment wasn't broken into, everything with incriminating fingerprints was removed, and the method doesn't match that of a crazed stalker. Gus says that Shawn should just let the police have this one, and that he needs to get back to sucking up to his boss.
At the police department the chief tells Shawn that the police are going to keep looking for Deanna's stalker unless Shawn can provide some sort of proof that he wasn't Deanna's attacker. Lassiter then escorts Shawn from the room. Outside Henry gives Lassiter a fishing hat, saying that he wants Lassiter to look the part when they go fishing again. Shawn weakly protests that the hat is his, before leaving to “Catch the killer.”
The next day Gus is back at the camp with his co-workers. Shawn arrives, and poses as a lab technician who works at Gus's company. His boss buys it, and lets Shawn talk with Gus for a bit. Shawn tells Gus that Deanna is still in danger as her attacker will be determined to kill her before she wakes up from her coma. Gus's boss asks Gus if there's a problem, and Shawn steps in, claiming that Gus's grandmother has broken her other hip.
At the police department Deanna's stalker has been found and arrested. Shawn runs up, and has a psychic episode, claiming that the man is pure of heart, and didn't attack Deanna. Lassiter then holds up the trophy that was missing from Deanna's apartment, and says that the police found it in the stalker's car.
Later at the beach Julie and Shawn meet for a “Secret meeting.” Julie gives Shawn a bunch of files relating to the case, and tells Shawn that the all the people she talked to seemed to think that the court ordered therapy had payed off. The stalker was also on dialysis, and probably didn't have the energy to attack Deanna. The police aren't listening to her, and have taken the 24-hour guard off of Deanna. Shawn insists that the guard be reinstated, but Julie tells him that it won't happen unless Shawn can provide another suspect. Shawn looks at the crime scene photos, and tells Julie that the break in, and the attack were done by two different people. Julie tells Shawn to find the real criminal quickly, and that he'll need evidence.
Henry is having lunch with Lassiter in front of his house. Shawn walks up, and grows increasingly upset with his fathers new-found closeness with Lassiter. Shawn eventually starts talking to his father about the case. Saying that he knows the stalker didn't commit the assault, but doesn't have any proof. Henry tells Shawn to close his eyes, and remember the crime scenes, as photo's aren't as good as actually seeing the scene. Shawn does so, and remembers something from the apartment, he then laughs, and runs off to look at the second crime scene.
Shawn and Gus enter Deanna's apartment, and Shawn moves around putting the crime scene photos in near where they were taken. He then asks Gus what time it is. Gus tells him it's about the same time there were last here. Shawn points out that all the clocks are wrong. Shawn asks Gus to lay down where Deanna was found, but Gus refuses. Shawn asks Gus why he hasn't trusted him lately, and Gus brings up the windbreaker, and the battleship game. Shawn explains that he needs Gus to do this, as he thinks that the crime scene was tampered with as the photo's have shadows that are in the wrong places. Gus eventually agrees. Shawn walks around the apartment verifying that the shadows in the photos are different then what they should be. Shawn also notices that a shelf that had 7 pictures when they were last here now has 6, and matches the photo. Finally Shawn sees that the lights are on in the bushes of the restaurant next door in the photo, and when he asks a server about them she says that the lights are only turned on after 5.
At the police department Shawn bursts in on Lassiter, Julie, and the chief working on the case. Shawn brings their attention to the discrepancy's in the photos, and says he can lead them to the real killer. Shawn capers into the hallway, and leads everyone to Felix, the forensic technician that he briefly met at Deanna's apartment. Shawn points out the lights in the restaurant photo, and sums up the case. The tech met Deanna when he took pictures of the stalkers break in last year. They started dating, but Deanna lost interest. Felix attacked her, and cleaned up the crime scene taking anything that would have had his fingerprints. He realized later that he'd forgotten a photo that had a bag with his initials on it in the background, so he snuck back later, and re-photographed the scene without the incriminating photo, but forgot to reset the clocks before leaving. The chief tells some officers to arrest the investigator while they figure things out.
Shawn runs up to Henry at his house, and wakes Henry from a nap. Henry asks about the case, and Shawn tells him that they got a full confession. They also found a fake hospital badge, so he was probably going to kill Deanna later. Lassiter arrives, and tells Henry that he won't be able to make their next fishing trip, since he has work. Shawn follows Lassiter, and points out that since he just finished a case he should be free. Lassiter says that Henry spent their entire trip criticizing him, and he doesn't want to spend any more time with him. Shawn seems happy.
Gus and Shawn make their way back to the team-building event, to find everyone leaving. Gus's boss says that while Gus did miss the entire event, he's impressed that Gus put his grandmother above his career. He gives Gus the route, and invites Gus and his grandmother to his house for fondue. As Gus's boss leaves Gus asks Shawn what he's supposed to do as his only living grandmother lives in Jamaica. Shawn smiles, and tells Gus to trust him.
Tropes:
- Dirty Cop: One of the forensic experts turns out the man who attempted to kill Deanna. He cleaned up the crime scene as best he could and removed a photo, which showed a bag with his initials on it. He also rephotographed the crime scene and planted the murder weapon in the car of Deanna’s reformed stalker.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: The attacker turned out to be Felix, the crime scene technician who only appeared briefly early in the episode.
- Failed a Spot Check: The culprit re-photographed the second crime scene’s pictures to cover his tracks. What he failed to do was take into consideration the sun’s rays being in a different position than the actual time of day supposedly conveyed by clocks, which he altered. There’s also a photo of an Indian restaurant across the apartment where the bushes have lights, which are on an automatic timer that goes off at 5 PM. The latter becomes important because the clocks were set at an earlier time, making it clear that someone reset the clocks.
- Failed Attempt at Drama: Gus is frustrated whenever he tries to make an ominous quote, only for it to fall flat.
- If I Can't Have You…: Presumably, Felix's motive, as he was angry she dumped him.
- Non-Indicative Title: There's actually no murder in this episode, as Deanna is in the hospital, but mentioned to not be dead by the end. Though not for lack of trying.
- Trophy Violence: Deanna's head wound came from being clobbered in the head with one of her trophies.
