Crazy Never Dies

One Girl Missing. A Town Full of Secrets.

Five years ago, Tracey Bauer vanished without a trace, and everyone in Brunswick thinks they know who to blame. But Assistant District Attorney Jason Caine isn’t convinced. As more missing girls come to light and a retired deputy is silenced, Caine uncovers a web of corruption, fear, and power that runs deep in the heart of this small town.

With the sheriff in one pocket and the truth buried under decades of silence, Caine’s pursuit of justice forces him into dangerous territory. Facing off against a powerful patriarch and a system rigged against him, Caine must risk everything—his job, his values, and his life—to bring a killer to justice.

Get your copy of Crazy Never Dies by Tom Towslee and follow the gripping trail of a man who refuses to let the truth die.

Excerpt from the book

Present Day

Three shootings. Two stabbings. Six weddings. Four wakes. Countless fights. A dance floor scuffed by two generations of boot-scootin’ boogie. A jukebox with everything from Hank Williams to Luke Combs. Vinyl-upholstered banquettes with cigarette burns that looked like bullet holes. Tabletops stained with brands of beer no one makes anymore. The bandstand in the corner that played host to a parade of below-average bands playing ditties by Jim Croce and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Customers hanging on until closing had a good chance of hearing Proud Mary multiple times. Five video poker machines sat in the corner like vampires waiting for pensioners.

The Wood Butcher Bar and Grill had seen it all. But a dead bull topped everything.

It was a scene worthy of The Far Side. A massive Hereford bull spray-painted electric blue lay dead in the middle of the Wood Butcher’s scarred dance floor. The beast lay on its side, all four legs sticking straight out like limbs on a fallen tree. It’s barely in the back door. Its horns are just short of the swing doors into the restaurant. Its stomach starting to bloat.

The two men staring down at it wore lederhosen, suspenders embroidered with red-and-white roses, white shirts with matching knee-high socks, and beanies with propellers on top. Between the socks and the lederhosen were four knobby knees and a few inches of hair-covered thigh. The only things missing were a tuba, a bratwurst, and a foam-topped stein of lager. One of them held a rope attached to the dead beast’s nose ring. The other could do little more than stand with his mouth open. The looks on their faces said, “What the fuck.”

The animal’s dead eyes reflected lights from the jukebox, video poker machines, and neon signs promoting Budweiser, Coors, and a draft IPA. The smells that came with death hung in the air like an invisible fog to mix with the odor of hot grease wafting out of the kitchen. The man holding the rope reached out with his foot to gently kick the steer with the toe of his shoe, then looked amazed when the poor beast didn’t stand up, shrug its shoulders a couple of times, and walk out.

“You boys want to walk me through this?” Jason Caine said, looking down the length of the bull toward the two men. He was standing at the wrong end, but at this point it didn’t matter. One end was as dead as the other, although the bloating stomach was starting to worry him. No telling what would happen if it blew.

In a place as small as Brunswick County, pretty much everyone knew Daryl and Larry Schmid and accepted the fact that even together they were a few cows shy of a herd. Caine had known them since grade school. Now, after twenty years, seeing them standing over a dead cow in a bar, he shouldn’t be surprised. It was just hard not to be. Even by Schmid standards, this was beyond the pale.