He had understood something those clever, ruthless men never did: that in the very long run, truth is simply stronger than lies, and the only question is whether you can outlast them long enough to prove it.”

Chapter 24 — Two Headstones

By that afternoon the rain had come, a soft misting drizzle, and I drove my modest sedan down the winding coastal highway to a quiet wooded cemetery tucked behind an old stone church in the town of Rockport.

The graveyard was silent except for the patter of the rain on the last of the autumn leaves.

Near the crest of a small hill, beneath the sprawling branches of a sugar maple that must have stood two hundred years, I found what I had come for: two simple granite headstones, set side by side, close together, the way you set the stones of people who belong together.