Ruddik didn’t answer, and that left me lost. I was at the stage with him when I wanted more talk. I wanted some answers, too. I tried to focus on driving, but the information I’d picked up churned inside me, wreaking havoc on my poor stomach. Then the cell phone rang, a number I didn’t recognize. I was still leery of unexpected calls, given the press interest in Hadley, but I couldn’t stand not answering and got relief and release when I heard Ruddik’s voice on the other end. “I found out about the Ditmarsh Social Club,” I told him. It sounded ridiculous when I started explaining the history—that it had been a kind of glee club a century ago, that it reformed in the ‘50s, not to sing, but as a kind of vigilante group. And when I mentioned Earl Hammond and the City, he interrupted and asked me who I was talking about. “Hammond was an inmate here about twenty years ago. The social club kept him in the hole for three years after he killed a CO. Then he got transferred, and the social club broke up after that.”
What do You think about The Four Stages Of Cruelty?
