“And that is?”

“His nose.”

“What about it?”

“The nose of the teenager, in my opinion, does not match what I see on the six-year-old. That’s not to say it couldn’t have aged this way, but it would be unlikely.”

Myron considered that for a moment. “Would a nose job explain it?”

“A classic nose job? No. Nose jobs by and large make noses smaller. In this case, the new Patrick Moore has a larger nose than expected.”

Myron thought about that. “How about, I don’t know, if his nose was broken repeatedly?”

“Hmm.” Alyse Mervosh picked up a pencil and tapped the eraser against her cheek. “I would doubt it, but it’s not impossible. There are also surgeries to build up a nose, due to trauma or congenital deformities or, mostly, cocaine abuse. Perhaps that would explain it. But I can’t say with anything approaching certainty. That’s why I am ruling as I am.”

“In other words,” Myron said, “we miss a conclusive identification by a nose?”

Alyse Mervosh looked at him for a second. “Wait, was that a joke?”

“Sort of.”

“Ugh.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“Humor aside,” she said, “you need a DNA test.”

Chapter 23

I stare at the Dutch farmhouse through binoculars.

The flight from Rome to Groningen Airport Eelde in the Netherlands took two and a half hours. The ride from the airport to this farm in Assen took twenty minutes.

“Only four people in the house, dreamboat,” a heavily accented voice says to me.

I turn to Zorra. Zorra’s real name is Shlomo Avrahaim. He is former Mossad and a cross-dresser, or whatever the appropriate term is for a man who likes to dress as a woman. I have known many cross-dressers in my time. Many are quite attractive and feminine in appearance. Zorra is neither. His beard is as heavy as his accent. He does not manscape in the brow area, so both appear to be hairy caterpillars with no interest in turning into butterflies. His knuckles could best be described as midtransition werewolf. His curly red wig looks like something he stole from Bette Midler’s show trunk in 1978. He wears stiletto heels, literally, as in an actual blade is sheathed in the heel.

Way back when, Zorra nearly killed Myron with that blade.

“We know that from the thermal imaging?” I ask.

“The same Zorra used in London, dreamboat.” His voice was a deep baritone. “This will be too easy. How you say? Fish in barrel. You waste talents of legendary professional like Zorra.”

I turn to him and look him up and down.

“Problem, dreamboat?” Zorra asks.

“Peach skirt with orange pumps?” I say.

“Zorra can pull it off.”

“Glad Zorra thinks so.”

Zorra’s head swivels back to the house. The wig doesn’t move with it. “Why are we waiting, dreamboat?”

I do not believe in intuition or sensing something is not quite right. But then again, I don’t simply dismiss what I’m feeling either. “This seems too easy.”

“Ah,” Zorra says. “You sniff a trap.”