Jack leaned back and shook his head. “Everything about this case is screwy.” He looked up at Chet and was surprised to see he had his coat on. “Oh, are you leaving?”

“Yeah, and I’ve been trying to say goodbye for the last fifteen minutes.”

“Take a look at this before you go,” Jack said. He motioned toward his microscope as he pushed away from the desk to give Chet room.

Chet debated. He checked his watch. He was due at his gym for a seven o’clock aerobics class. He’d had his eye on one of the girls who was a regular. In an effort to build up the courage to approach her, he’d been taking the class himself. The problem was that she was in far better shape than he, so that at the end of the class he was always too winded to talk.

“Come on, sport,” Jack said. “Give me your golden opinion.”

Chet let go of his briefcase, leaned over, and peered into the eyepieces of Jack’s microscope. With no explanation from Jack, he first had to figure out what the tissue was. “So, you’re still looking at this frozen section of liver,” he said.

“It’s been entertaining me all afternoon,” Jack said.

“Why not wait for the regular fixed sections?” Chet said. “These frozen sections are so limiting.”

“I’ve asked Maureen to get them out as soon as she can,” Jack said. “But meanwhile this is all I have. What do you think of the area under the pointer?”

Chet played with the focus. One of the many problems with frozen sections was they were often thick and the cellular architecture appeared fuzzy.

“I’d say it looks like a granuloma,” Chet said. A granuloma was the cellular sign of chronic, cell-mediated inflammation.

“That was my thought as well,” Jack said. “Now move the field over to the right. It will show a part of the liver surface. What do you see there?”

Chet did as he was told, while worrying that if he was late to the gym, there wouldn’t be a spot in the aerobics class. The instructor was one of the most popular.

“I see what looks like a large, scarred cyst,” Chet said.

“Does it look at all familiar?” Jack asked.

“Can’t say it does,” Chet said. “In fact, I’d have to say it looks a little weird.”

“Well said,” Jack remarked. “Now, let me ask you a question.”

Chet raised his head and looked at his office mate. Jack’s domed forehead was wrinkled with confusion.

“Does this look like a liver that you’d expect to see in a relatively recent transplant?”

“Hell, no!” Chet said. “I’d expect some acute inflammation but certainly not a granuloma. Especially if the process could be seen grossly as suggested by the collapsed surface cyst.”

Jack sighed. “Thank you! I was beginning to question my judgment. It’s reassuring to hear you’ve come to the same conclusion.”

“Knock, knock!” a voice called out.

Jack and Chet looked up to see Ted Lynch, the director of the DNA lab, standing in the doorway. He was a big man, almost in Calvin Washington’s league. He’d been an all-American tackle for Princeton before going on to graduate school.