Fishy murder mystery has haunted columnist since childhood. ‘Case’ remains unsolved
If fishermen can tell fish stories, so can I.
Only this one really happened. The memory has haunted me throughout my life. So much so, that I recently felt compelled to share it with my best friend, Lydia, and her daughter, Gabby.
“He killed her,” I told them. “Stuck her through her heart with his whisker. She was floating belly up when we found her.”
The “she” in this story was a goldfish named Sally. And the “he” was an upside-down catfish named Whiskers. Before Sally’s untimely demise, the two shared a 10-gallon tank in my bedroom. I was 9 years old at the time.
“What do you mean he killed her with his whisker?” Gabby asked. “That doesn’t make sense.”
A newly-minted doctor, Gabby asks a lot of questions. At the time of our conversation, she was talking to me and her mother on speaker phone. I couldn’t see her face but I knew her mouth was hanging open.
“His face was full of really sharp whiskers,” I explained. “And his fins were razor-like. It’s a catfish thing.”
If I close my eyes, I can still picture Whiskers, a scavenger small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. You would never hold him, of course, because he would spear you. Grey with black spots, Whiskers spent his days hanging upside down in the castle at the bottom of the tank. At night, he would venture out to clean the aquarium — and romance Sally.
“I was only a kid but I knew about their relationship,” I said. “I also knew that Sally’s heart belonged to another gold fish named Ollie, who also resided in the tank.”
Ollie was a klutz but he was bigger than Whiskers. Googly eyes. Big fan tail. Not really handsome but there was something about him.
And then there was the Sally. Her bright orange body glided seductively through the tank. And her puckered mouth appeared to be painted by lipstick.
“It was like a soap opera — an underwater love triangle,” I said. “And then, we found her dead.”
At this point in the story, Lydia was thoroughly engrossed. Gabby? Not so much.
“Aunt Shelly, fish don’t have emotions,” she said. “And I still don’t get how Whiskers could kill Sally with a whisker.”
I ignored her skepticism and finished my fish tale.
“A couple months after the incident, we found Whiskers on the floor next to the fish tank. He’d flipped himself over the edge. I’ve always maintained the guilt of murdering Sally overwhelmed him and he committed death-by-oxygen.”
Did Whiskers murder Sally? What happened to Whiskers?
Full disclosure: My twin sister, Melanie, thinks Whiskers, who was a scavenger, may have been cleaning the walls of the tank when it happened. And when he got to the top, he just kept going.
I did not share this theory with Lydia and Gabby because I don’t believe it holds water.
Did Whiskers murder Sally? Did he then kill himself out of guilt and regret? Or could have Ollie — his heart broken by Sally’s demise — tossed Whiskers out of the tank to avenge his “gill-friend’s” death?
I assure you, none of the facts of this story are the end result of a 9-year-old future writer’s overactive imagination.
Decades later, the case remains unsolved.
