Stalling outside the locker room, momentarily stunned by what she had overheard, she felt her face flame with a sudden rush of indignant anger.
While she attempted to pick up her jaw from where it lay, the two women walked out of the room, still chucking to themselves, and almost bumped straight into her.
"Oh, sorry." One of them blinked, shooting her a quick smile before they dodged around her and continued on their path, oblivious to the reason for her loitering.
She turned, narrowing her eyes at their retreating forms, before finally managing to regain some semblance of composure. Straightening up to her full height, she pushed her shoulders back and rounded the corner into the darkened room.
Sara was sat on the bench, her head bowed, in almost exactly the same position as she had been last time Catherine found her in here. The time she had been crying to herself.
Now that Catherine thought about it, she realised that she had passed one of those women in the hallway that day, too, coming from the direction of the locker room. Evidence without context ... it hadn't meant anything at the time.
"Ahem." She cleared her throat, getting her companion's attention. "What was that?"
Sara's head shot up, her eyes flashing from Catherine's face to the door, where the two swing shift CSIs had disappeared just a moment ago. A blush instantly fell over her cheeks at realising that she had been eavesdropping.
"Nothing," she plastered a smile on her face, but it was half-hearted at best. "It was nothing."
Catherine cocked her head to the side, her expression remaining stoic and impossible to read.
"Nothing, huh?" She echoed, nodding slowly as ambled further into the room. "Well that's funny, because it sounded like blatant homophobia to me."
Sara visibly stiffened, her gaze sinking into her lap.
Taking a seat beside her on the bench, Catherine attempted fruitlessly to catch her eye.
"Sara, is there something you'd like to tell me?" She asked, softening her voice.
"Cat, really, it's nothing." Sara offered an embarrassed laugh, shaking her head. She attempted to push herself off the bench, but Cath caught her wrist, holding her firmly in place.
"Sara." She warned.
Unable to retract her arm, the brunette finally, albeit reluctantly, met her questioning stare.
"Alright," she sagged back down sadly. "I'm sorry. I ... I wasn't deliberately not telling you guys, I swear. I just ... I didn't want my personal life to become water-cooler gossip."
Catherine stared at her for a long moment, trying to assess what exactly the younger woman was apologising for.
"Sara, I don't care about your love life!" She exclaimed, tightening her hold on her friend's wrist. "But I do care that you're being subject to this kind of abuse! Why didn't you tell me?"
Sara shrugged quietly.
"Because it's not a big deal." She explained when it became apparent that Catherine wanted more than that.
"Yes, it is." She countered bluntly. "They have no right to say that, to you or anyone else."
"Cat, really, it's fine." Sara assured her softly, finally retracting her hand. "I can handle it. Please, don't get involved."
Catherine inhaled and exhaled a deep breath, attempting to reign in her bubbling anger.
"Sara ... if you walked in here one day and overheard Warrick being subject to racial abuse, would you be able to just sit back and let it continue? Or would you stand up for him?"
"Of course I'd stand up for him." Sara frowned. "But this is different..."
"No, it's not." Catherine cut her off. "And I'm not going to stand by and let it continue. How long has it been going on for?"
"About six months." She confessed meekly, accepting that she wasn't going to get out of this conversation anytime soon. "It wasn't so bad at first, just the occasional comment or dirty look. But, lately I guess it's been escalating ..."
She trailed off, letting the blonde's imagination fill in the blanks.
Cath nodded tensely, sinking her teeth into her lower lip in thought.
"Sara, does this have anything to do with why you wanted me to stay on as your supervisor, rather than Grissom?"
"Maybe." She conceded shyly, drawing a slow nod of understanding from the other woman.
She'd suspected that there was something deeper behind the request and the insinuation that Sara might need more support in the near future, but she had to admit that the possibility of her being the victim of homophobia in the workplace wasn't even on her radar.
"I'd rather Grissom not find out, if it's all the same to you." Sara continued hopefully, casting her eyes back towards her boss' face.
Catherine considered her appeal for a long moment. Eventually, she reached out to crook a finger under Sara's chin, tilting her head up to hold her gaze.
"From now on," she instructed, "if they say or do anything, you tell me straight away."
"Cath," Sara attempted to slide her gaze to the side, but Catherine held her firm.
"Anything," she repeated sternly. "You come to me."
x X x
"Natalie Cooper and Vicki Harrison." She declared, striding into the office without knocking.
Ecklie looked up, perturbed by the interruption, and stared at her for a full minute before resuming his work.
"They're on Swing." He said needlessly. "What about them?"
"I caught them offering homophobic abuse to another member of staff."
The calm assertion caused his pen to slip on the paperwork he was filling out and he looked up again, startled.
"You did?" He asked, although he need not have bothered. The scalding look in her eye and clenched jaw were evidence enough that she was pissed about something.
Standing up, he scampered around his desk and ushered her out of the doorway, allowing him to close it for some privacy.
"Okay." He hummed, leaning back against the edge of his desk. "Who was it aimed at?"
"That's not important." She answered reflexively. "And they would prefer not to be outed at work because of their actions."
"But Natalie and Vicki know that they're..."
"Yes." She said tightly. "I can give you a statement of what I heard. That should be sufficient for you to take the necessary disciplinary action against them."
"Yes, please do." He nodded absently, already trying to work out the best way to handle this. Workplace disagreements were easy, but discrimination in the workplace had to be handled carefully, lest it spiral out of the workplace and into the public domain.
The last thing he needed was someone venting on social media – or God forbid, to the actual media – that the Las Vegas Crime Lab had failed to appropriately handle such a sensitive issue.
"I'll speak to their supervisor and we'll make sure it's dealt with." He assured her.
"You'd better." She replied in that same carefully clipped tone. "Because if I catch them at it again, I'll deal with it. And that won't end well for them; or your current good standing with the Sheriff."
He held her gaze, sensing the genuine threat behind her words. She also knew all too well how spectacularly this could backfire on him if he didn't get it right. Slowly, he reached past her to open the door.
"Thank you for bringing it to my attention." He said professionally. "I can take care of it from here."
x X x
He had been up and down the full list of staff who worked in the lab twice and was still non-the-wiser. There were a few people he had question marks over, but none that were particularly jumping out at him as being obvious targets.
Catherine had already provided her written statement of what she heard, but it would be far too easy for Natalie and Vicki to simply deny it and without the actual victim to corroborate the allegation, his hands would be pretty tied as far as any kind of disciplinary was concerned.
However, it stood to reason that this probably wasn't an isolated incident.
There was only one member of the lab that he knew for a fact was gay, and that was Bobby Dawson. There were probably several more, but it had honestly never been something he'd given any degree of thought to until now. Other people's personal lives were of no concern to Conrad Ecklie.
Since Catherine had made it clear that whoever it was wanted to remain 'in the closet' for the time being, he knew it couldn't be Bobby who was the victim in this instance.
But that didn't necessarily mean that he hadn't been, at some point. So, after much deliberation, he decided it was as good a place as any to start in trying to establish the extent of the issue.
Tapping on the door, he waited for the tech to look up from her microscope before entering, a tight smile on his lips.
"Bobby," he greeted. "How are things in the ballistics world?"
"Fine." Bobby answered suspiciously, eyeing the Lab Director as he meandered around the room, absently assessing the weapons in their secure cases. "Is there something I can help you with?"
Ecklie smiled at the polite request. Of all the techs and CSIs, Dawson was one who rarely gave him any issues. He liked Bobby.
"Well, there was something I was hoping to discuss with you actually," he disclosed, lowered his voice.
"Okay." Bobby drawled, leaning back against the bench behind him and crossing his arms protectively.
Ecklie glanced into the hallway, checked that they were not being overlooked by an curious passers-by.
"I wanted to ask you, has anyone here ever said anything or done anything to make you feel ... uncomfortable?"
"Uncomfortable?" Bobby frowned, not understand the question.
"Yeah, I mean ... has anyone ever said anything that you found ... offensive, perhaps regarding your personal life?"
Finally starting to see where he was going with it, Bobby's expression hardened imperceptibly behind his perpetually pleasant mask.
"Well, sir, I certainly wouldn't want to get anyone in any trouble..."
"It's alright, Bobby." Ecklie reassured him. "Anything you say can remain anonymous. It's just that there's been a complaint made and I need to follow up on it."
"Really?" The Texan blinked, surprised. "Well, in that case, there are a couple of people who have made ... insensitive comments, in the past."
"And, who would they be?" Ecklie pressed.
Bobby mimicked his earlier action of checking the hallway, suddenly feeling subconscious. Snatching up a piece of paper, he scribbled down a couple of names and handed it to the boss, who read it with a sad sigh.
"Thank you." He nodded, not in the least bit surprised. "Would you be prepared to provide a statement regarding these 'insensitive' comments?"
Bobby pursed his lips, an unusually nervous look falling across his features.
"I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you, sir." He answered graciously.
"If you're worried about repercussions, I can keep you name out of it."
"I appreciate that." He continued. "But I'd just as soon not make a fuss. Thank you."
Sensing that he was being dismissed from the lab, Ecklie took the hint and nodded in understanding.
"If you change your mind," he said, offering a glimpse of genuine concern behind his usual 'about to hold a press conference' appearance. "My door is always open."