Eight Million Gods-eARC Read Online Free PDF

confusing, mostly because of her own ignorance of the kitchen appliance. Somehow she had lived twenty years with ever seeing one in person. She had found the Blendtec videos, and it felt right, but none of her searches were pulling up where you could buy them in Japan.
    “I’m out of rice and stuff,” she said. “I had planned to go food shopping, but I wanted to keep working—polishing the scene—so I got three rice balls for dinner.”
    She also showed Nakamura some Blendtec videos on her laptop and asked the girl if she had ever seen any for sale. So not going to mention that. She realized, though, she had proof of the third visit. She couldn’t tax-deduct food, so normally she didn’t keep food receipts. Since she had taken the laptop with her in her backpack, though, she had tucked away the sales slip as she pulled out her computer. “I kept the receipt. It’s in the little zippered pocket in the front.”
    Tanaka unzipped the compartment and pulled out the little slips of paper. Nikki had kept the receipts of her morning shopping because the manga, and possibly both the fireworks and the knife, were all deductible. She would have to check with the Team Banzai members. Tanaka sorted through the receipts and found the one that recorded her trip to the FamilyMart. He uttered one of the Japanese wordless sounds of surprise and slid the slip to Yoshida, who produced a plastic evidence bag and bagged it.
    “How long did you talk with her?” Tanaka asked.
    This sounded good, like maybe she had an alibi. “I was there fifteen minutes. Maybe twenty minutes. I didn’t know what I wanted to eat for dinner. I like to try new stuff, but the panda blood flavored cookies made me not want to experiment.”
    She had desperately wanted peanut butter sandwiches, but none of the local food stores carried the tiny jars of Skippy that was the only way the spread was sold in Japan. She didn’t want to make a special trip across town to buy some. “In the end, I got the rice balls because they’re a safe bet. I like the salmon-stuffed ones. Then I looked at the manga until no one was there so I could ask Nakamura questions.”
    Yoshida translated or speculated or talked about the weather. He didn’t mention rice balls, which were called onigiri , so she wasn’t sure what he actually talked to Tanaka about.
    Tanaka nodded to whatever Yoshida told him, watching Nikki through his cigarette smoke. “Last time you went?”
    “About ten minutes later.” She checked on her laundry and then went back to the convenience store without going back up to her apartment. “I wanted to ask Nakamura more questions, but she had gotten off work. I decided to buy something to drink, but I didn’t want soda. I looked at the drinks for five or ten minutes. I bought something I thought was grape juice—I don’t know what it was—it tasted horrible.” She pointed at the pile of receipts. “I think it might have been sake. I kept the receipt to show my friend.”
    Tanaka shuffled through the papers again and found that she indeed had kept the receipt. She took it as a very good sign that he seemed slightly dismayed by it. He tapped his fingers beside it for a few minutes before asking, “Who else did you talk to about the blender?”
    They were considering the possibility that someone else had murdered George’s doppelganger. Relief went through Nikki, as she had a trump card on top of the receipts. “I blogged it.”
    Tanaka glanced to Yoshida, who said something long and detailed. Surely the Japanese knew about blogging. Yoshida got up and left.
    “We start again.” Tanaka stubbed out his butt and tapped another cigarette out of the pack. His dark eyes studied her closely. “Why are you in Japan?”
    “I’m writing a novel set in Japan,” she said truthfully. “I came to do research for the book.”
    “On a tourist visa?”
    “I don’t qualify for other types of visas. I have another thirty days on my visa.” At which time