What if you were nor­mal?

What if you were brought up like all the other girls?

You would­n’t be who you are to­day. You would­n’t be The De­tec­tive.

But maybe you’d have a room like hers.

A girly room.

Pink com­forter. White wooden bed. Four bed­posts. Big pil­lows.

Lots of pil­lows.

Would you want such a room?

Maybe you’ll never know.

You did, once. You did­n’t know what would be in­volved. You had few friends,
and you never saw many other girls’ rooms at any­ways, so did­n’t know what you wanted.

You wanted your room painted pink.

He would­n’t let you.

That de­ci­sion, at least, may have been for the best. Who would ever want a hot-pink room?

But maybe you would have liked a room like this one. Maybe some­thing at least a lit­tle girly.

On sec­ond thought, maybe not this girly. Even the dresser is white with pink ac­cents.

At least there’s a con­sis­tent color scheme.

It does­n’t mat­ter now.

He did­n’t want you to be who you are, so you be­came The De­tec­tive, and
now you don’t have to think about him any­more.

You do any­way. You miss him.

What did he want you to be?

Does­n’t mat­ter.

You aren’t.

You de­cide you like the dresser, and will get your­self one like it.

Im­por­tant mat­ters re­solved, you re­turn to your de­tec­tive work.

Sigh.

What a waste of time. You should go.

The boy’s killer never stepped in this room. None of the boy’s killers.

Nei­ther did the boy, or if he did, it was­n’t for long.

“He never liked the room.” It’s the girl.

“I know.”

The po­lice­man next to you asks how you could pos­si­bly know this.

He hy­poth­e­sizes that per­haps the boy was al­ler­gic to pink. Would most boys re­ally
mind so much? You don’t know.

You think the po­lice­man would look bet­ter with a heavy mus­tache.

“No,” you say, but do not elab­o­rate.

He knows he won’t get any­thing more from you. He turns to the girl.

“He kept star­ing at the pil­lows.”

Of course he did.

Un­like the boy, you don’t get caught star­ing.