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| Game Set...Muuurder? | |
| Season | 1 |
| Episode | 13 |
| Air Date | February 16, 2007 |
| Written by | Anupam Nigam |
| Directed by | James L. Conway |
| Guests | Kirsten Nelson Christopher Moynihan Thomas Kopache David Kopp |
| Previous episode | "Cloudy...Chance of Murder" |
| Next episode | "Poker? I Barely Know Her" |
Recap[]
Gus leaves Shawn alone for the weekend to go off on a retreat for work and Shawn is bored. He goes to the police station, begging Juliet for a case. When she declines he suggests they think of another way to cure his boredom and hints that it includes baby oil.
Looking around Shawn sees a man talking to Chief Vick. Gathering clues from what he sees in the files, he covers his face with a scarf, barges in the office and convinces the chief to put him on the case. It turns out the man was Leonard Sirtis, and his daughter, Deanna, a highly ranked local tennis player, is missing. The prime suspect is a former stalker of hers, Felix Alvarez.
Shawn calls Gus out of his retreat to get him on board with the case. He previously made a call to tell Gus' bosses that Gus' grandmother is ill. Together, they go to the Sirtis house, where they learn that besides tennis, Deanna really enjoyed having her picture taken as there are photos of herself displayed everywhere. They also learn Leonard had a security camera put into Deanna's room after Felix broke into the house and discover a cheap gold ring among her expensive jewelry. Gus points out it's an eternity ring, given by someone with whom she was probably intimate. Shawn decides that because she doesn't wear the ring all the time it must be from a secret lover her controlling father doesn't approve of.
Shawn and Gus go to the tennis club to talk to Deanna's hitting partner. Shawn convinces the girl to hit a few with Gus while he questions her about Deanna. Shawn learns that Deanna was boy crazy. She recently started dating another player on the tour and her father wasn't happy about it. The girl mentions that Deanna was going to fly to Tokyo to meet the guy. Shawn spies an ad for a salon with nails done like Deanna had in a photo and heads there with Gus. Thanks to Gus' attention to the billing/shipping addresses they learn she has an alternate address listed for a delivery and head over to the place.
When they get to the apartment, the police, EMTs and crime scene photographer are already there. Deanna is being loaded, unconscious, into an ambulance. This is no longer a missing persons case, it's attempted murder. In the apartment, Shawn sees more cheap jewelry and quite a few photographs on a shelf. He notices a restaurant next door. The pictures of Deanna are obviously taken in the apartment and there is a trophy in most of them that Shawn doesn't see in the apartment and decides that is the murder weapon. Lassiter finds Deanna's prior stalker and hauls him in, Shawn states the man's innocence but the murder weapon was found in Felix's possession.
Juliet agrees with Shawn meeting him later, and tells him that Felix's psychiatrists say he was completely rehabilitated. Plus he has a medical condition that has him on dialysis, which leaves a person too exhausted to stalk and attack someone. Felix is being framed. Juliet gives Shawn the police files on Felix's original break-in, and the one on Deanna's attempted murder, to see what he can "divine" from them.
Shawn takes the files to Henry who tells his son that police reports aren't gospel, they are just one person's view on what happened. Henry walks Shawn mentally through the crime scenes (not allowing Shawn to mentally stop for donuts between the two scenes as Shawn wanted to). Shawn looks at the crime scene photos from the attack and notices a discrepancy between the shadows in the pictures and how the shadows fell on the apartment wall when they was there – when the crime scene photographer was taking the pictures. Shawn barges into the retreat to break Gus out again so they can go back to the apartment at the same time of day they were there before. Shawn realizes the clocks aren't set to the right time, the shadows on the pictures are not the same and a photo is missing from the shelves. Shawn figures out who the murderer is.
Shawn and Gus go to the police station, to tell them that they've figured out who the attacker is, but also that he is there in their midst. It's the crime scene photographer. He met Deanna when he photographed her house after Felix broke in. They had been seeing each other ever since, until Deanna started dating the other tennis player and wanted to break it off. The photographer went to her house, confronted her, and hit her with the trophy. Shawn points out the photographers bag which he had noticed in the photo that was missing from the apartment.
Gus and Shawn go back to the retreat just as it ends, but Gus' dedication to his family is so great that it impresses his boss enough to give him the account that Gus was trying to obtain.