-23- It was a great day to be out on the lake with a snowmobile. The ice was covered with a light blanket of snow that had fallen the previous evening, and it sparkled in the pale rays of a sun that had peeked out just in time for their deliveries. It was cold, but both Hannah and Andrea were dressed for the weather, and they zipped along from ice-fishing house to ice-fishing house, taking cookies and coffee to the contestants. Everyone was glad to see them. It was a break in a sport that could get rather boring if the fish weren't biting.
"I've never seen the inside of an ice-fishing house before, but they remind me of something familiar," Andrea said, buckling her seatbelt and waiting for Hannah to drive to their next stop.
Hannah looked over at her sister and grinned. "I know exactly what it is. Just think of the buildings on Grandma and Grandpa Swensen's farm, and that should jog your memory."
"What good will that do? Grandpa Swensen didn't go ice-fishing." Andrea thought for a moment. "You mean the corn crib?"
"No." Hannah pulled forward across the ice. "Guess again."
"The shed where he kept the tractor?" Andrea raised her voice so that Hannah could hear her over the sound of the engine.
"Nope."
"Then what? Their farm was nowhere near the lake, and I know they didn't have an ice-fishing house."
"You're right. They didn't. But there's another thing they didn't have ? indoor plumbing."
Andrea's mouth dropped open and then she started to laugh. "Really, Hannah!"
"Well, it's true. An ice-fishing house looks a lot like an outdoor privy. It's got four walls, a roof, and a bench. The only difference is, the hole is in the ice."
"It's true," Andrea admitted, still cracking up. "I wish you hadn't told me. Now I'm not going to be able to think of anything else."
Hannah grinned and headed across the lake at a good clip. They'd decided to start with the farthest ice-fishing houses and work their way back to shore. So far, they'd visited six, and they still had over a dozen to go.
"Don't tell me Pete's fishing from his car!" Andrea looked utterly amazed as they pulled up next to Pete Nunke's old Ford.
"Looks like it." Hannah left the snowmobile idling, and they got off to gather up Pete's cookies and his container of coffee. As they approached, Pete rolled down his window, and Hannah had all she could do not to burst into laughter. He was fishing from the passenger's bucket seat, which had been turned backward. Pete's car radio was tuned to KCOW, he had the engine idling and the heater going, and the backseat had been removed to make room for a hole in the floorboards that he'd lined up with the hole he'd chopped in the ice.
"Afternoon, Pete," Hannah greeted him. "We brought you coffee and cookies."
"Thanks, ladies." Pete reached out to take the bag and the coffee.
"Any luck?" Andrea asked.
"Not yet, but there's something down there." Pete pointed to the small monitor that had been installed on the back window ledge. "See those blips on the screen?"
Andrea peered through the window. "You've got a fish locator. That's smart, Pete."
"Took it off my boat when I dry-docked it this fall. Want to climb in and warm up? You can share the driver's seat."
"Thanks, but we'd better get going," said Hannah, shaking her head. "We still have more cookies and coffee to deliver."
"Okay. I have to move on anyway. Looks like those fish are heading for the old sunken rowboat about twenty feet to the north. It's a natural habitat."
"Are you going to chop another hole in the ice when you get there?" Andrea asked.
"Already chopped it. I put in three holes yesterday and another three this morning. All I have to do is drive over and wait for the fish to get there."
Hannah and Andrea stood by and watched as Pete drove away in his mobile ice-fishing house. Then they headed back to the snowmobile and continued on their delivery route. After another twenty minutes of passing out coffee and cookies, they had only one ice-fishing house left, and it belonged to Mayor Bascomb.
"It certainly is big," Andrea commented as they pulled up in back of the mayor's structure. "I heard he really decked it out in style."
Hannah nodded. Mayor Bascomb always had the biggest and the best. As the son of Lake Eden's most successful land developer, he'd grown up with money, and he knew how to spend it.
"What's that?" Hannah asked, cutting the motor and listening. "It sounds like voices. Mayor Bascomb must have someone out here with him."
Andrea shook her head. "I don't think so. Bill was thinking about entering and I read the rules. It's a solo contest. You have to do it all by yourself."
Hannah grabbed the last bag of cookies and handed Andrea the last container of coffee, and they walked around to the front of the mayor's ice-fishing house. She spotted a generator sitting close to the wall, and there was an electrical cord that ran through a small hole to the inside. "He's got a generator. Maybe he's listening to the radio."
The door was shut, and Hannah knocked out of pure habit. It was a real door with a handle, and it even had little panes of glass at the top.
"Come in," the mayor called out, his voice muffled by the heavy door.
"I'm surprised he doesn't have a doorbell," Hannah muttered to her sister, opening the door. She took two steps forward and then stopped in awe as she saw what Lake Eden's mayor had done to decorate his ice-fishing house. Not only was it bigger than all the others, roughly the size of her guest bedroom at the condo; it was practically a second home.
Instead of the crossed two-by-fours that the other ice-fishing houses had in place of a floor to keep the structure rigid, Mayor Bascomb had a real floor covered with indoor-outdoor carpeting. This floor ended three feet short of one of the walls to expose a strip of ice with his ice-fishing hole in the middle. Against one of the carpeted walls was a television set in an entertainment center that also included a stereo and a VCR. The set was tuned to a golf tournament, and the ocean and palm trees on the screen indicated a tropical venue. Perhaps that would have kept some people warmer by pure suggestion, but Mayor Bascomb's ice-fishing house wasn't even close to freezing, thanks to two electrical space heaters that sat on stands. A leather loveseat sat against the opposite wall, and it was flanked by two tables that both contained lamps. A coffee pot on a shelf near the door gave off the delicious aroma of freshly brewed coffee, and a microwave sat next to it.
"Don't just stand there. Come in and shut the door," Mayor Bascomb ordered, swiveling slightly in the recliner he'd placed on a raised dais at the edge of the flooring. "I'm going to need some help here. I hooked a real lunker and I can't pull him in by myself."
"But isn't that against the rules?" Andrea asked, stepping in and shutting the door.
"Forget the contest. I'll disqualify myself. This is the biggest fish I've ever hooked and I want to bring him in."
"We're coming," Hannah told him, motioning for Andrea. "What do you want us to do?"
"You two steady the line and I'll operate the winch."
"You have a winch?" Hannah was amazed. She'd never heard of anyone who'd used a winch for ice-fishing before.
"It's bolted to the studs in the wall." The mayor pointed to the hand winch. "My wife bought it for me last Christmas."
"Your wife gave you a winch for Christmas?" Andrea asked, sounding amused.
"I know it's crazy, but somebody down at the hardware store convinced her that it was a good idea. I had to put it up, but I never thought I'd actually have a use for it."
"How about your line?" Hannah walked over to glance at the mayor's fishing pole. "Is it strong enough?"
"I hope so. I rigged it for one of those twenty-pound northerns and they can put up a fight. Whatever I've got here is a lot heavier than that. I just about popped a blood vessel getting him in this far. He's got to run twenty, maybe even thirty pounds."
With Andrea helping, Hannah let out enough extra line for Mayor Bascomb to tie it to the winch cable. When that was secured, they were ready to haul the fish up.
"Stay right there, one of you on either side of the hole." Mayor Bascomb looked more nervous than Hannah had ever seen him as he gave them instructions. "I'll crank him up slow, and you steady the line. Make sure it doesn't rub against the sides of the hole. This is going to be a trophy fish and I don't want to lose him."
"He's not fighting much," Andrea commented, glancing at the bobber that was just sitting on the surface of the water.
"I know. I figure he's trying to lull me into a false sense of security and he'll put up a real fight when he breaks the water. Shout out when he gets close. I want to wrestle him in myself."
The mayor cranked, and the line began to wind around the drum. It seemed to take forever, but at last Hannah could see something red rising toward the surface of the water. "He's red. I didn't know there were any red fish in this lake."
"Neither did I," Mayor Bascomb sounded puzzled. "What the heck is he?"
"Search me," Hannah said, watching as the patch of red came up another inch. Then she gasped and hollered out to the mayor. "That's enough! Stop cranking!"
Mayor Bascomb locked the winch. "Are you ready for me to bring him in?"
"Not yet." Hannah turned to Andrea. "Do you have your cell phone with you?"
"Of course. I never know when a client might need me."
"Go sit down over there." Hannah moved to block Andrea's view of the hole and gave her sister a nudge toward 'I the loveseat. "I need you to make' a call for me. It's important."
Andrea looked as if she might object, but one glance at Hannah's serious expression convinced her to head for the loveseat. When she got there, she pulled out her cell phone and sat down. "Who do you want me to call?"
"Bill. Tell him to get right out here with Mike."
"Okay, but why do we need them?" Andrea asked.
"Just do it, Andrea."
"All right, I'm doing it." Andrea punched in the number, and then the light dawned. Her eyes widened and the color blanched from her face. "You mean. . . it's not a fish?"
Hannah shook her head. "Not unless the well-dressed fish is wearing a gold watch this season."