Kyle Rolinatis is a midwestern horror/comedy author. She is the two-time recipient of the prestigious “Pleasure to Have in Class” award at Prairie Lincoln Elementary School. Kyle spent most of her life with her nose in a Stephen King book, brooding, or writing poetry and short stories. These days you can find Kyle working on her debut horror/comedy novel “Ope!” between crippling bouts of procrastination and her day job in healthcare administration. In her free time Kyle spends time with her family and too many animals in Columbus, Ohio and loves to vacation in coastal Maine. Her debut novel is set to be released in 2024 and if you follow her on Facebook or Instagram she promises to get a website started as soon as a child or teenager shows her how.
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ROSE OF SHARON
by
Kyle Rolinatis
“That should do it” Ryan grunted softly to himself as he used the smooth side of the metal shovel to tamp down the uneven bits of dirt into a perfectly smooth bed. He tossed the shovel to the side and bent down to carefully pick several larger stones off the top of the dirt. Ryan grabbed the trays of petunias and began placing them evenly in the newly created flower bed. He used a small gardening shovel to make an intended spot for each plant.
It was daylight when he finished, and the dew was making the plants and grass sweat. He wiped the dirt off his hands onto his jeans which had streaks of drying blood painted across them. He collected the gardening tools and hurried to the toolshed where he hung them in their designated spot. The only tool missing from the hanging hooks in the shed were the hedge trimmers. Nobody would ever find those because those were buried about five feet below the newly landscaped flower bed along with the body of Ryan’s boss, Alec Fineman.
Ryan was below poverty level despite being the groundskeeper for Mr. Fineman for several months. One day, Ryan was in the house summoning Mr. Fineman to tell him about a parasitic shrub louse he had discovered. Instead, what he saw as he rounded the corner into the study was Mr. Fineman putting a giant stack of money into a wall safe and shutting and locking it. It was at that moment, Ryan decided if he could find out that safe combination, he was going to do something he never thought he would do - rob his employer.
Alec Fineman was a screenwriter of several Oscar nominated films, who had been hitting a rough patch. At least that’s what Ryan heard him confess to his son over the phone. Ryan stood around the corner from the pool house eavesdropping, as Mr. Fineman told his son he had been using a new A.I. writing tool called “BrAInwave.” He said his best work ever was coming by way of this tool. He assured him it was foolproof, and nobody would ever know because the creators of this A.I. guaranteed original stories and complete confidentiality.
“Piece of shit” Ryan muttered when he heard that conversation “can’t even write for himself.” Later that day, Ryan was lingering around the study window pruning bushes and saw Mr. Fineman walk into the study and straight toward the safe. He watched his fingers carefully as he put in the numbers 7459. Mr. Fineman pulled out a stack of cash off the massive pile that was still so big it could hardly fit in his pudgy pink hands and plucked three bills off the top as he crammed the rest back in the safe, locking it securely. He turned around as Ryan ducked just in time. Mr. Fineman came out to find Ryan watering the herb garden and handed Ryan two, not three $100 bills. He said “sorry, it’s a little tight this week, I’ll get you next week” followed by a patronizing pat on the back.
Ryan had enough and he birthed an idea. He figured there was probably at least a million dollars in there. He would get the cash and make Mr. Fineman disappear in the process. He could go on BrAInwave too, just like the bigshot Alec Fineman. Hell, probably every other story writing asshole did the same now. He would have BrAInwave would give him a story; a story about getting away with the perfect murder. Opening his laptop, he entered a few details into the program and within minutes there was a full story titled “Rose of Sharon.”
The story was about a woman, Sharon, hiring a man to kill her wealthy husband for a huge payday. The hitman posed as the owner of a landscaping company. Sharon and the landscaper lured him outside away from security cameras, or line of sight from the neighbors. They killed him and planted a fresh bed of flowers, Rose of Sharon bushes, over his grave. In the story, after some time passed, the wife collected the money and at the end was pruning her flowers in a big floppy sunhat with a huge smile.
Ryan thought this story sounded familiar. Maybe he saw this in a movie, or a couple of movies, but it could be the perfect murder plan, given his vocation. He worked on digging the grave in the back of the estate discreetly for a couple weeks. When the time was right, he lured Mr. Fineman out. He killed him by stabbing him right in the back with the hedge trimmers while he stood over a shrub, and threw him in the grave. He quickly planted flowers over top of him.
Ryan removed the money from the safe. It was only $860,000 and he took every penny. He did leave a few items behind, a Patek Philippe watch and some diamond rings, hoping it would throw investigators off the robbery-turned-murder angle.
Weeks went by and Ryan continued to show up to work even though he no longer needed the money. The police and FBI investigators were always poking around, and he liked to stay close to see if he could glean any information. The investigation was going cold, exactly as the AI story predicted. Mr. Fineman’s son, Otto, asked Ryan to continue on as the landscaper, and he agreed.
3 Months Later
Ryan left his apartment in Hollywood to head into Beverly Hills. He was going to quit today and disappear. It had been three months since Mr. Fineman’s murder, and he felt like the coast was finally clear. He was almost to the parking lot when he saw two men in suits quickly approaching him from across the street. He looked up at the billboard just behind them and the sign hailed the release of the new hit movie, “Rose of Sharon – screenplay by Alec Fineman.”