“Frankly, I couldn’t care less.” Crawley twirled his wheelchair around and headed for the kitchen. “But, if I did care, I’m sure there would be a way to find out.”

Around the corner from me lived a guy who worked for the Department of Water and Power, and he claimed to be a dowser. You’ve probably heard of people like this—they use wishbone-shaped twigs to tune into “earth energies” or something, and can find water underground. Anyway, this guy’s name was Ed Neebly, and his job was to look for leaks in the city’s water grid. I don’t know if the Department of Water and Power knew he did his job by dowsing rather than by using the more traditional method, commonly called guessing.

I saw him work once in a neighbor’s yard, armed with two L-shaped stainless-steel rods instead of a wishbone twig. I guess this was advanced technology for dowsers. With one rod in each hand, he paced back and forth across the yard. Neebly said that when the rods stayed parallel, it meant there was no underground leak. If the rods crossed, then there was water. Walking back and forth across the lawn, he accurately predicted where the leak in the pipe was, and everyone watching was amazed. Of course, he had been standing in a mud puddle when he made the prediction, but he claimed that was just a coincidence. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Crawley had suggested there were ways to find out about the Schwa’s mother and her vanishing act. Well, the Schwa was convinced it was supernatural, and I wasn’t going to deny the possibility that maybe he was right. Maybe she had a terminal case of the Schwa Effect, and when no one was looking the universe kind of just swallowed her without as much as a burp. Then again, though, maybe there was a burp—and that’s where Ed Neebly came in. According to Ripley’s Believe It or Not, any halfway decent dowser could also go dowsing for spirits and other “paranormal phenomena.” It’s one of those do-not-try-this-at-home kind of things, because if you’re like me, you really don’t want to know how many people died in your bedroom.

“I do believe in auras and energy fields,” Lexie told me, “but I don’t know if I believe in this.”

Still, we hired Neebly to bring his dowsing talents to the Waldbaum’s in Canarsie—the alleged supermarket where the Schwa’s alleged mother allegedly vanished. He didn’t charge us anything. “Consider it a community service,” Neebly told us. “When we’re done, pay me what you think it’s worth.”

For this task, his dowsing rods were made of glass. “Glass resonates with the spirit world more than metal,” Neebly said. “Spirits find metal irritating and head the other way. True.”