Theodore Decker: Killer koi take toll on fish pond newcomers

Theodore Decker The Columbus Dispatch @Theodore_Decker

Spring arrives with a Toro roar. The goldfinches shed their winter plumage to match the blooming forsythia. In the pond, my serial-killing fish begin to stir, with further murders on their minds.

After the incident, I took to calling them Thing 1 and Thing 2.

They aren't much to look at, which is exactly what people said about Ted Bundy.

Born in the pond, they stayed brown for a few years before turning orange. In their youth they were content to swim alongside the others in peace and harmony.

Those days are gone. So are "the others."

The killings ended as quickly as they had begun, just about a year ago.

My pond's fish population, historically about 10, had been thinned in recent years, presumably by great blue herons and a few undetermined causes. Those investigations have been reopened; Things 1 and 2 remain uncharged suspects.

The Big Bird Battles had taken their toll on me as much as the fish, and eventually I stopped replenishing the supply of avian appetizers. For a long time, Things 1 and 2 were the only fish in the pond, which apparently is just how they like it.

Last year I relented and brought home three koi and a shubunkin. As the newcomers floated on the pond surface, Things 1 and 2 swam up to nose the clear plastic bags in what I naively took as a greeting.

I turned the newcomers loose and checked in a few hours later. One was speeding around the pond with Things 1 and 2 in hot pursuit.

I knew there were reasons for this type of behavior, including territory disputes and breeding season. I assumed the issue would resolve itself.

And it did. I found the first body the next morning, out of the pond in a nearby bed of pachysandra. No visible signs of trauma.

A second koi broke the pond surface in a panic and darted behind a potted pickerel plant to hide. Right on its tail: Things 1 and 2.

Strange.

I hunted for the remaining newbies the next day but spied only the Things.

Heron? wondered my wife.

Maybe, I said, but what if it's a frame job? Maybe the Things murdered them. They staged one to look like suicide and disposed of the other bodies. They knew they could pin it all on the heron.

This is what happens when you cover crime for too long. You don't see the world through rose-colored glasses. You see it through lenses splashed with arterial crimson.

The next day I knew something was wrong. I cleared the surface of floating hyacinths and water lettuce.

Thing 1.

Thing 2.

Nobody else.

I plumbed the depths. I poked around the lily pots.

Then I moved a kidney-shaped pot of rushes away from a pond wall.

All three new fish were floating between the pot and the wall. All of them were dead.

My God, I thought. The Things murdered them and hid the bodies!

Don't be ridiculous, you say. The victims, new to the pond's arrangement, simply swam into a diminishing space from which they could not escape.

From the pond center, Things 1 and Thing 2 stared at me, motionless.

I backed away.

Slowly.

Since then, Things 1 and 2 have fallen into their old routine. They are rarely apart, splitting up only at feeding time. In "Jurassic Park," it was explained that velociraptors work together when hunting. One shows itself, and while the prey focuses on that raptor, the others move in from the sides to make the kill.

This is what Thing 1 and Thing 2 have started doing to me. I toss in some food. Thing 1 rises slowly from the bottom to eye the pellets. And me.

He does not move until Thing 2 darts in from the side. They feed wildly, then sink together into the murk.

I know it is spring and brighter days are ahead. But heaven help me, whenever I pass that pond, I feel a deathly chill.

tdecker@dispatch.com

@Theodore_Decker

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