Chapter Three

Grissom enters the break room looking angry. No, really – his face can do that.

"Conrad! You put one of my CSI's on one-week leave?"

Ecklie turns around sinisterly. "Nicholas Stokes is a loose cannon."

"No he isn't."

"Okay, no he isn't – but he was behaving inappropriately with Sanders."

"We all do! That's why we hired Greg - you know that. He only became a full CSI so we could shut him up when the review board came around."

"Fine. Stokes wasn't receptive to my come-ons," says Ecklie resentfully while adding rat poison to the communal coffee pot.

"Conrad, you're not even gay."

Catherine and Warrick enter, also upset about Nick, mostly to further establish that Ecklie is evil.

"I know," says Ecklie, resting his pitchfork against the table, "but I've been rejected by all the women."

"At CSI?" asks Grissom.

"No, everywhere. So I figure there's nowhere to go from here. I tried spending my time at the morgue…"

"Dear God," says Catherine, removing the empty needle from her forehead, "even I'm not that desperate for it."

"I know," continues Ecklie, "but then I found out Doc was married."

"What about David?" Grissom suggests.

Everyone shudders violently.

"Well, I think…" begins Warrick.

"We better get back to the lab," says Grissom, as though no one had spoken.

"Isn't anyone going to listen to me? Don't I matter? Can't I have some character development?"

Warrick notices that everyone has already left and reaches to make himself a cup of coffee. "Damnit! That's it – I'm going to the casino. My gambling problem is all that keeps me from being billed as "Random Non-Threatening Black Guy", and now that Nick's on leave I can't even be "Helpful and Cool Token Negro Buddy"."

"Hey, Warrick!" says Grissom, coming back in through the door as Warrick begins bringing the cup of coffee to his mouth. "We just found out this case involves a black man! We'll ask you to interrogate him without really saying why."

Warrick drains the coffee in the sink. "Yeah, that'll make it less obvious. Are you going to get Catherine to interview the girl's mother while Sara handles the abusive father?"

"Yep! You know, I've just realized… without all of my pretentious Shakespeare quotes, Latin, quirky obsession with bugs and unyielding reverence from my co-workers, I'm actually a pretty crappy supervisor."

"Yeah, but we're pretty crappy CSI's – I mean, why would you have an entire team of emotionally scarred people working on murder cases around the clock?"

Grissom has already left. Warrick pulls out his pointless CSI gun and removes the safety.