He’d had an identity for over two decades as a lawman. A strong and faithful public servant. The high sheriff, by God.

And then an awful mistake he’d made as a young man came back to strip everything he’d ever worked for away. Now, all anyone would ever think about when they heard the name Ennis Aaron Petrie was . . .

Racist.

Killer.

White supremacist.

Bigot.

That was his new identity. All because he’d joined the Ku Klux Klan back when many prominent citizens were members and because he’d made the horrible choice to tag along when his friend Samuel Baeder had asked if he wanted to be part of something “big.”

Should he have put a stop to what was happening once he realized what was going down? Yes, he damn well should have. He had assumed that they were only going to scare Roosevelt, not actually kill him, but he eventually should have stopped them.

But he didn’t. He’d been the youngest one there, and any action on his part against the mob would have ended his career in law enforcement before it had even begun.

He’d been scared of the consequences, and a good and decent man had been murdered.

Does one act of cowardice define a whole life?

These were the things he thought about as he walked up Jefferson Street, where an out-of-town car was normally parked outside Ms. Butler’s Bed & Breakfast. Ennis would gaze at the license plates of the cars sometimes, recognizing neighboring Tennessee counties as well as some from over the state line and into Alabama. Mostly these cars belonged to couples who came to celebrate an anniversary or a birthday.

Ennis envied these folks who would breeze into town, enjoy some good food and the companionship of their lovers, and walk around the historic downtown square or maybe head over to the Amish country of Ethridge. They came to Giles County with fresh eyes.

He wondered about these people sometimes. Their backstories. Whether any of them had made a terrible mistake in their life. Whether they had asked Jesus for forgiveness.

Ennis had sat on the third pew of First United Methodist Church for thirty-two years. He stood when it was time to sing hymns, and he always put something green in the collection plate. He attended Christmas Eve night service and was an usher once a month. His wife, Sheila, was on the finance committee, and his daughter, Ellen, was married in the church. His granddaughters were baptized by the Reverend Shep Griffith when they were six months old, and Ennis put his hands on their tiny shoulders while Shep sprinkled holy water on them.

Ennis stood and said the Lord’s Prayer with a hundred other members every Sunday for three decades. He sang, he prayed, and he tithed. He did what Christians were supposed to do.

But he hadn’t known Jesus until he was sent to prison.