Just Revenge Read online

  PRAISE FOR

  ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ’S

  BESTSELLING JUST REVENGE

  “A serious exploration of the human heart and of the larger moral questions of justice and revenge....Dershowitz knows that the horrors of the Holocaust must not be forgotten. He also knows that the primal impulse of revenge must be contained in a civilized society.”

  —Washington Post Book World

  “Fascinating . . . a moral page-turner which provokes thought even as it touches the heart. In fiction as in the law, Alan Dershowitz is a national asset.”

  —Richard North Patterson,

  bestselling author of Degree of Guilt

  “A courageous exploration of the impulse toward revenge.”

  —David Mamet

  “A marvelous book. . . . If you read one novel this year, make it JUST REVENGE.”

  —Washington Jewish Week

  “This book succeeds brilliantly in combining a riveting tale . . . with a troubling theme of human nature that lies as deep as Genesis in our souls.”

  —Stephen Jay Gould

  “A fascinating novel, discussion, and well-drawn tour of court proceedings.”

  —National Law Journal

  “JUST REVENGE is a gripping, original novel which, in addition to holding the reader’s attention, poses fundamental questions of law, justice, and morality. The jury’s decision at the close of the novel aptly reflects the author’s values and dilemmas.”

  —Norman Lamm, president, Yeshiva University

  “Compelling . . . will leave readers pondering the morality of revenge right down to the final melodramatic twist.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “I highly recommend JUST REVENGE: It’s one hell of a thriller.”

  —William Styron

  “Gripping . . . a thought-provoking ride that leaves readers with a respect for Dershowitz’s abilities as a fiction writer . . . a story that forces readers to draw a line between justice and revenge. . . .Without a doubt, Dershowitz earns his stripes as a writer of fiction with JUST REVENGE and places himself in the ranks of John Grisham and Scott Turow.”

  —Oakland Press

  “A cliffhanger . . . a very good read, a thoughtful reflection on the meaning and the limits of justice, and a good treatment of a painful Jewish memory.”

  —St. Louis Jewish Light

  “As the trial escalates, surprises abound.You’ll hold your breath as you turn the pages. . . . Here’s one, reader, for your book group to read and discuss.”

  —Taconic Newspapers

  “[A novel of] virtuosity and excellent narrative style. . . . The complexity and depth of the theoretical care he gives his subject provides an additional dimension.”

  —A. B. Yehoshua

  “Compelling and thoughtful.”

  —Southern Pines Pilot (NC)

  “A thought-provoking book that raises the issue of the human impulse toward revenge, and examines it courageously and even-handedly.”

  —South China Morning Post

  “A novel of juridical insights, great knowledge of Jewish history, and, as always, written with passion and strength.”

  —Aharon Appelfeld

  ALSO BY ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ

  Psychoanalysis, Psychiatry, and Law

  (with Jay Katz and Joseph Goldstein)

  Criminal Law: Theory and Practice

  (with Joseph Goldstein and Richard D. Schwartz)

  The Best Defense

  Reversal of Fortune: Inside the von Bülow Case

  Taking Liberties: A Decade of Hard Cases, Bad Laws, and Bum Raps

  Chutzpah

  Contrary to Popular Opinion

  The Advocate’s Devil

  The Abuse Excuse: And Other Cop-Outs, Sob Stories, and Evasions of Responsibility

  Reasonable Doubts

  The Vanishing American Jew: In Search of Jewish Identity for the Next Century

  Sexual McCarthyism: Clinton, Starr, and the Emerging Constitutional Crisis

  JUST

  REVENGE

  ALAN M.

  DERSHOWITZ

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  WARNER BOOKS EDITION

  Copyright © 1999 by Alan M. Dershowitz All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Warner Books, Inc., Hachette Book Group, 237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  Originally published in hardcover by Warner Books.

  The “Warner Books” name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  First eBook Edition: September 2000

  ISBN: 978-0-7595-2330-2

  Dedicated to the members of my family who were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. My great-grandfather, Avraham Mordecai Ringel—after whom I am named—had four sons. My maternal grandfather, Naftuli, came to America before the war. His brother Yakov—whose family is pictured on the front cover at a wedding on the eve of the Holocaust—tried desperately to follow him, but was excluded by the Jewish quota and was killed, along with all his children and grandchildren, except for one son (bottom left of cover photo) who immigrated to Palestine. Another brother, Anshel, was murdered, along with his four daughters. Another brother, Nussen, fled the Nazis and made it to Siberia, where he survived the war, though two of his grandchildren were killed and four died of starvation and disease. May the Ringel family and their millions of fellow victims never be forgotten.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Part I: The Ringel Family

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Part II: Max's Story

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Part III: Confronting the Truth

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Part IV: Nekama

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Part V: Apprehension

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Part VI: Preparing for Justice

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Part VII: Justice on Trial

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Part VIII: Justice?

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Man
y family members and friends read drafts of this book. My daughter, Ella, and my wife, Carolyn, were involved in every aspect of my writing, editing, and even selection of the cover photograph. My sons, Elon and Jamin, provided the kind of loving criticism on which I have come to rely. My brother, Nathan; my sister-in-law Marilyn; my nephew, Adam; my niece, Rana; my mother, Claire; my mother-in-law, Dutch; my father-in-law, Mortie; my brother-in-law, Marvin; and my sister-in-law Julie all contributed their unique insights. My valued friends Michael and Jackie Halbreich, Sandy McNabb, Sue Levcoff, Alan Rothsfeld, Alex MacDonald, Ken and Gerry Sweder, Bob Nozick, Steve Gould, Rick Patterson, Alan Stone, and Mark Wolf exaggerated the book’s virtues, while minimizing its faults and prodding me gently toward improvements. My oldest friends—Murray and Malkie Altman, Bernie and Judy Beck, Zolly and Katie Eisenstadt, Carl and Joan Meshenberg, Hal and Sandy Miller-Jacobs, Josh and Rochelle Weisberger, Barry and Barbara Zimmerman—gave it to me straight, as they always do. I learn so much from their wisdom. My usual thanks to Maura Kelley, who typed the manuscript at all hours of the night, and to John Orsini, who always found the answers.

  Special thanks to Frances Jalet-Miller and Jessica Papin for their brilliant editorial help and to Larry Kirshbaum for his tough love approach. My agent, Helen Rees, guided me through the process with her usual encouragement.

  Finally, my eternal gratitude to the many survivors and children of survivors from whom I learned so much about the horror of the Holocaust. My cousin Israel Ringel provided me with information about our family, as well as the photograph used on the cover. My hope is that I have written a book that may lead a few people to better understand and empathize with the victims of the worst crime ever perpetrated by one group of human beings on another—a crime whose perpetrators too often went unpunished and were even rewarded.

  If you wrong us, shall we not revenge?

  Merchant of Venice

  Act III, Scene I

  JUST REVENGE

  Prologue

  MASSACHUSETTS: MAY 1999

  The old man shifted his shaking right leg from the brake pedal to the accelerator as he aimed his 1989 Volvo directly at the spot where the eight-year-old child would soon cross the street. In less than a minute the smiling blond-haired boy, on his way to a second-grade assembly at the Sancta Maria Elementary School, would be a bloody heap of shattered bones. Within the hour his family would receive the dreaded news that their child and grandchild had been struck down.

  The old man behind the wheel—the man who was about to murder an innocent child—did not appear capable of such violence. During his nearly forty years in America, he had never broken a law, never knowingly hurt anyone. Now his long-festering need for revenge would be satisfied. Finally his moment was at hand. He had just learned something so terrible, so unforgivable, that he was willing to break any law or commandment, to incur any punishment, in order to secure his just revenge.

  As the old man watched the portly crossing guard wave the youngster across the street, he slowly pressed his foot down on the gas pedal. The towheaded boy skipped toward the center of the street, holding a baseball glove and a ball. The old man gunned the accelerator. As the car lurched toward the terrified eight-year-old, the old man’s mind exploded with the images that had brought him to the point where he could murder a child.

  Part I

  The Ringel Family

  Chapter 1

  CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

  SEVEN MONTHS EARLIER: OCTOBER 1998

  “It’s great having you home from school,” Abe Ringel said, hugging his twenty-two-year-old daughter, Emma. “But you do look tired.”

  “You’ve gotten a few more gray hairs yourself,” the petite law student observed as she stroked her father’s unruly coif. Abe was quickly approaching the midcentury mark and was sensitive about the darkening beneath his eyes and the lightening above his forehead. He had always appeared youthful, even through his early forties, but the past few years had begun to take their toll on his rugged good looks.

  He held his daughter for an extra moment as he whispered, “I’ve really missed you, sweetie.”

  “C’mon. It’s only been a month, and Yale is only two and a half hours away from Harvard by car—though it’s light-years ahead in the way it teaches law.” Emma couldn’t resist the gibe at one of Harvard Law School’s most famous and loyal local alumni.

  “No way I’m getting into an argument with a first-year law student—especially a Yalie. You kids argue in your sleep.” Abe smiled. “Tell me all about your classes. Did you get to the case about the shipwrecked sailors who ate the cabin boy? That was the first case we studied in criminal law. I’ll never forget it,” Abe mused nostalgically.

  “We don’t study that stuff at Yale, Daddy,” Emma retorted. “It’s Jurassic. When’s the last time a sailor ate a cabin boy?”

  “That’s not the point, Emma. It’s the principle of the case.”

  “Yeah, yeah. We learn all that in legal history. We’re even reading about one of your ancient cases. Boring!”

  “Really? Which one?”

  “No, Daddy, not really. God, you’re so not with it. It was a joke. But we did study the Dred Scott decision about slavery.”

  “And you think I represented the slave owner?”

  “You would have, wouldn’t you?”

  “Only if he were charged with a crime,” Abe replied, smiling. “Just kidding. I remember our deal. C’mon, let’s stop talking about law school. Tell me about you. Did you meet any nice boys?”

  “I don’t meet boys. I meet men,” Emma teased, arching her back in a provocative pose.

  “Enough,” Abe groaned, turning away.

  “And, yes,” Emma continued, ignoring her father’s discomfort, “the class is full of nice men—and nice women, too.”

  “So, so. Tell me everything.”

  “No way. I’m over the age of consent, and the law says I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  As Emma said these words, Abe’s wife, Rendi, jogged in puffing and sweating. “Is your dad being nosy again?”

  “What else is new?” Emma said, smiling as she got up to hug Rendi. “Whee, you stink. It must have been a good workout. I’ve missed you. Now you I want to tell about my sex—whoops, my social life. ’Cause I know you won’t tell my dad.”

  “I’d go to jail first. Like Susan McDougal. We can gossip later. I’ve missed you, Emma. I love your new do.”

  “Daddy didn’t even notice.”

  “So what else is new? Your father wouldn’t notice if I shaved my head,” Rendi said, playing with the auburn hair that cascaded to her shoulders and framed the bronze complexion and striking features of her face. A Sephardic Jew who was raised on a kibbutz in Israel and who had spent several years in the Mossad, Rendi was a tower of strength, both physical and psychological.

  “Maybe I’ll shave my head. We’ll see if Daddy notices. He didn’t notice my nose ring,” Emma said, turning her face away from Abe.

  “I’m not falling for that,” Abe said, sneaking a peek at Emma’s profile.

  Abe and Rendi had gotten married shortly after the second Joe Campbell trial. The Campbell case had changed everything in Abe’s life. He had successfully defended the star basketball player from rape charges, despite his growing suspicion that Campbell had been guilty of raping Jennifer Dowling. Then Campbell had tried to rape Emma on her eighteenth birthday and nearly killed her. It took Emma the better part of a year to forgive her father and to begin to put her life back together. Although there were still tensions in the father-daughter relationship, the crisis had drawn Abe closer to Rendi, who had been his longtime lover and investigator and who was helping Emma work through her feelings toward her father. The marriage had changed very little in Abe’s and Rendi’s lives, except that they now lived together in Abe’s large, modern Cambridge house. They still fought like children about nearly every legal issue on which they worked. But they loved each other passionately, and they both loved Emma
.

  Emma sometimes sounded more like a teenager than a twenty-two-year-old law student when she teased her father. Like a clock whose hands stopped at the moment of an explosion, their relationship had somehow gotten stuck at the time of her near death experience. Emma had never directly confronted her conflicting feelings about her father’s role in the Campbell horror. In the meantime, she had maintained a psychological distance from her father through her adolescent teasing.

  “What brings you home so soon in the school term?” asked Abe’s wife.

  “So soon?” Abe thundered. “It’s been a month.”

  “No, really, is everything okay?”

  “It’s great. I love Yale. The teachers are so cool, especially the women. They’re the best. My crim law prof was a Supreme Court law clerk for Justice Breyer. And then she worked as a rape prosecutor. I told her about my case.”

  “Why did you have to tell her that?” Abe asked with a look of concern.

  “I didn’t have to tell her. I wanted to,” Emma said assertively, turning her head to face her father. “She announced at the beginning of the first class that if anyone had any life experiences that were relevant to the class, we should drop her a note. One guy in the class had been a cop for five years. A woman had been in jail for a month after she refused to testify against her boyfriend in a marijuana case. And I nearly got raped. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Daddy.”

  “I know that, but it brings back some very bad memories, and it’s nobody’s business.”

  “It’s my business, and I’m dealing with it the best I know how—by talking about it. What else can I do? I’d love to cut off his—”

  “Enough, Emma. You don’t have to get graphic. I get the picture, and I don’t like it. Taking revenge wouldn’t make you feel any better.”

  “How do you know?” Emma said, suddenly getting testy. “You get guilty criminals off scot-free for a living! I should think you would want to cut it off for me, as my father.”

  “Believe me,” Abe said emphatically, “I know how strong the passion for revenge can be. I see it in the faces of the victims—and in the hate mail I get from them. It destroys them if they don’t let go of it. You don’t want to end up like one of those bitter people you see on TV all the time, screaming for the execution of the creep who murdered their daughter.”