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No Celebrity Endorsement Implied

LOGLINE:
A death on an offshore oil rig leads to a jurisdictional battle between Vick and her Coast Guard Commander sister, not only over the case but also over the services of Santa Barbara's leading psychic detective.

SYNOPSIS:
After Safety Inspector Butch Hicks falls to his death off an offshore oil rig, Chief Vick enlists Shawn and Gus' help with the case.  As she takes them out to the crime scene on the police boat, she tells them they received an anonymous tip that something highly unsafe was happening on the rig and the caller was risking his life to warn them.  When Shawn and Gus ask why she didn't enlist help from her detectives or the Coast Guard, she tells them they are working more in an unofficial capacity.  Just then, they are pulled over by the Coast Guard, whose commander, Barbara Dunbar, questions Vick's authority over the Hicks case.  As they are arguing over jurisdictional lines, Shawn realizes they are sisters.

After a judge determines that Barbara and the Coast Guard have jurisdiction, Barbara co-opts her sister's chief psychic to work for her, a move that annoys Vick.  But when Shawn and Gus show up at the dock to take the boat to the rig with Barbara, they get word that she wants them to stay put and do nothing.  Barbara doesn't want their help, she just wanted to take something away from Vick.  Not to be swayed, Shawn and Gus hop a ride out with rig owner, Billy Joe Bamford and his daughter Ashley.  They initially tell them they are potential investors but then quickly come clean as to the real reason they need onto the rig.  Billy Joe tells them that if Hicks' death was in fact a murder, he'll do what he can to help.  He shows them around the rig, passing the locked office of a geologist Ashley hired to help them assess where to drill – help that the wildcat Billy Joe doesn't feel they need.  As Billy Joe lets them into Hicks' office, Shawn spots a map on the wall detailing the location of the rig.  Inside the office, they find evidence that suggests Hicks was the one who called in the anonymous tip to the cops.  Barbara shows up and tells them that even if that was the case, it still doesn't point to murder.  She tells them they need to be on the next shuttle off the rig, which leaves in an hour.  Shawn figures that gives them an hour to investigate.  They interview the crew that was working when Hicks died.  It turns out everyone hated him because he was such a stickler for the rules, which means he should have known better than to go into no man's land – an unsafe area of the rig that is off limits to personnel – which is where he died.  Shawn and Gus decide to go to Hicks' house to look for hard evidence.

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