Portrait of a Monster: Joran Van Der Sloot, a Murder in Peru, and the Natalee Holloway Mystery (8 page)

“There is very little hope,” they told Ricardo and Mariaelena.

FOUR

MONDAY, MAY 31, 2005
PALM BEACH, ARUBA

Ruth McVay woke up with a start. It was just after 8:00
A.M.
and departure day, and she needed to be sure she was packed and in the lobby by 10:00
A.M.
All the classmates were gathering there before the trip home to Alabama. The groups were split into two separate flights, and Ruth and her roommates were booked on the second, scheduled to take off at 3:00
P.M.

Ruth pushed off the blue-and-yellow patchwork comforter, and sat up in bed. “Hey, where’s Hootie?” she asked Lee, who was just waking up in the double bed next to her. Hootie was Natalee Holloway’s nickname. When she first moved to Birmingham in the eighth grade and discovered that most of the kids had nicknames for each other, she told everyone that her friends back in Mississippi had called her “Hootie Hoo Holloway.” She’d made up the name just to fit in, and it had stuck.

“She probably didn’t want to wake us, so she slept in another room,” Lee suggested. Climbing out of bed, she pulled back the yellow, floor-length curtains of the sliding glass doors letting in the morning sun. The girls’ room was right on the beach and had a small patio with a few chairs.

Ruth smiled. “You’re probably right.” Over the course of their vacation, she had become accustomed to waking up next to her good friend. For the past three days, Natalee had been the first one up, and was usually the one to rally the group. But she had definitely not slept on her side of the bed last night. The bedding was tucked in tight.

The living arrangements in Room 7114 had been loose, flexible at best. Madison would often stay with a friend in another room, and other classmates would take naps, or even stay the night in her vacant spot. Natalee, Ruth, and Lee, however, had steadfastly maintained their occupancy in Room 7114.

During their four days on the island, Natalee and Lee had slipped into a daily routine. They’d wake up, have a morning cocktail and then hit the beach around 10:00
A.M.
to swim and lay in the sun. If they weren’t taking an afternoon trip, they’d lunch at the pool. At 5:00
P.M.
, they would return to the room to nap for an hour before getting ready to go out to eat. After dinner, the bar hopping began.

At five feet four, and weighing 110 pounds, Natalee didn’t have the same tolerance for alcohol that some of the other teens did. That Saturday, Lee had become concerned when the petite blonde had had one too many and asked another Mountain Brook teen to escort her back to the room to sleep it off. But despite this embarrassing incident, Natalee was drinking Red Fires, an over-proof Cuba libre made with Bacardi 151 and diet Coke, at dinner that Sunday night. Again, she had seemed unsteady and friends told her to slow down. She ordered several more cocktails at Carlos’n Charlie’s. But Ruth thought that she had looked sober and in control when she saw her standing at the bar talking to Joran.

Natalee was most likely grabbing breakfast and would be back soon to pack up her suitcase. She was an amazingly responsible friend.

Lately, she had been telling Ruth about her dream of becoming a doctor. Most of the other gals in the graduating class seemed preoccupied with which sorority they would pledge. The last few evenings, she’d stayed up late talking with Ruth about how excited she was to be going to the University of Alabama.

Natalee’s family had been elated when they learned she had received a full academic scholarship to the university, where she was planning to enroll in the pre-med program in the fall. She had made plans to share a dorm room at the Tuscaloosa campus with another Mountain Brook classmate. She promised Ruth she would visit her at her college.

Ruth and Lee showered and finished packing, but by 9:00
A.M.
there was still no sign of Natalee. When Madison returned from her friend’s room, they told her they had not seen Natalee since the night before at the bar. Did she know where she was?

Madison had left Carlos’n Charlie’s with Ruth and hadn’t seen Natalee since. Pulling their friend’s purple duffel bag from the closet, Madison and another friend, Holly Brown, who was staying in an adjoining room, packed up Natalee’s belongings so that she would be ready when she returned for her bag. If she missed her flight, her mother was going to be mad, the friends joked. They could only imagine Natalee’s mother’s reaction if her daughter missed her flight because she was still basking on the sun-soaked Palm Beach on Aruba.

The first group of students was catching a 1:00
P.M.
flight back to the U.S. and was already gathering in the lobby for the bus to the airport.

“Where in the world could she be?” Ruth asked. “This is so unlike Natalee.”

Convinced she had spent the night with some of their friends on the trip, Lee and Ruth began calling other rooms before walking around the hotel knocking on the doors of their fellow students. No one had seen Natalee since the night before at Carlos’n Charlie’s.

Lee began to panic and she started to cry. The last time she had seen her friend, they had shared the dance floor at Carlos’n Charlie’s eight hours earlier. The two had gone crazy, rocking out to the eighties classics. Whenever the DJ played a song by Lynyrd Skynyrd, Natalee’s favorite band, she would go berserk. “Sweet Home Alabama” was the DJ’s top pick of the night.

Natalee was a particularly talented jazz dancer. Her natural, graceful moves often attracted the attention of the opposite sex. She was a member of her high school dance team, the Dorians. The previous night, the two friends danced their hearts out for an hour before Lee finally left her to return to the bar for another round.

When the bar had closed at 1:00
A.M.
, Lee looked around for Natalee but couldn’t find her. She filtered outside with about sixty other Mountain Brook teens, where taxis were lining the street to provide rides back to the Holiday Inn. With so many people spilling out at once, no one was specifically looking out for Natalee. A general presumption prevailed that everyone was looking out for everyone.

Still, Lee wanted to be sure Natalee was safe. She walked around the corner to another bar, Choose-A-Name, to see if Natalee might be there. Her instincts told her that Natalee had not been in the crowd outside Carlos’n Charlie’s. She would have called her on her cell phone, but the teens were in the unusual and frustrating position of having no cell service on the island. However, looking in the karaoke bar, Lee didn’t find Natalee there either and she returned to Carlos’n Charlie’s to take a cab back to Palm Beach.

At 3:00
A.M.
, Natalee still hadn’t returned to the room. However, she could easily have been in the company of scores of other Mountain Brook seniors still outside partying by the pool. She assumed that Natalee was pulling a last hurrah all-nighter.

Now, however, having fruitlessly searched the hotel, Lee felt sick at the thought that something might have happened. Overcome with nausea and panic, she ran to find a chaperone.

Bob Plummer, a teacher and golf coach at Mountain Brook Junior High School, was outside in the hotel parking lot. He had just completed a final head count and passport check of the students on the first bus when Lee, Ruth, and several other girls came running out of the hotel. They looked distraught, and one of them was crying.

“We can’t find Natalee,” Lee blurted out between sobs. “Nobody’s seen her since last night.” Plummer walked with the girls back into the lobby where the other adults were busy assembling the second busload of students, checking their tickets and passports.

“Has anybody seen Natalee this morning?” Plummer yelled out to the teens who were gathered near the wicker couches, seated on suitcases, listening to iPods.

“Yes,” one of the guys said. “I saw her leave Carlos’n Charlie’s last night with some guys in a silver car.”

Several of the classmates claimed to have seen Natalee in the backseat of the vehicle next to a tall white guy. Two dark-skinned locals were with them in the front seats. Natalee did not seem to be held against her will. They speculated that maybe Natalee thought she was getting into a cab with the guy since many of the taxis on the island are unmarked. When the car passed, Natalee rolled down the rear window and yelled out to her classmates standing on the curb. “I’m going to ride back to the Holiday Inn,” she shouted. “Aruba!”

It sounded to Lee like Natalee had gotten into a car with the Dutch tourist from the casino. She’d seen him at Carlos’n Charlie’s, standing by the front stage watching her dance. Her hunch was confirmed when one of her classmates said he’d recognized the guy from the Excelsior.

Lee was trying hard to control her emotions. This was not like Natalee. Something was terribly wrong. She would never get into a car by herself with strangers. It didn’t make any sense.

Plummer noticed Lee trembling. She was having a hard time catching her breath. Putting his arm around her, he tried to soothe her. “She probably just lost track of time,” he told the terror-struck friend. “She’ll show up. Let’s just go to your room and see if maybe she’s come back.”

Room 7114 was empty. Except for the purple duffel bag, there was no sign of Natalee. Plummer found her passport and a few dollars in one of the pockets of her luggage. Natalee, like most of the other kids on the trip, had left her cell phone in the room because her phone lacked an international calling plan, which rendered it useless on the island. Not wanting to leave Natalee’s belongings unattended, he picked up her bag and the two vacated the room and returned to the lobby.

The young women stayed with Plummer as he reported their missing classmate to the security officers at the Holiday Inn. Lee watched through her tears as one of the uniformed men scribbled something on his clipboard. He didn’t seem particularly concerned, and said little to comfort her.

The first bus was already on its way to Aruba’s Queen Beatrix International Airport and Plummer told Ruth and Lee that they needed to be on the second bus or they would miss their flight. The friends didn’t want to go; the thought of leaving Natalee behind was almost unbearable.

Chaperone Paul Lilly volunteered to stay at the hotel. He promised that everything would be all right. “I’m not going anywhere,” Lilly reassured Lee and Ruth. “I’ll be right here in the lobby waiting for her. Now go catch your flight.”

*   *   *

While her daughter and her friends were celebrating their high school graduation in Aruba, Natalee Holloway’s mother, Beth Twitty, had taken a vacation of her own. The month of May had been an exhausting blur of activity with Natalee’s prom, graduation, and the preparation for her big senior trip to Aruba. Beth had relished every moment of it. She loved her daughter, but she was worn out and looking forward to a few days of down time with friends.

Beth, a willowy Southern woman in her early forties, was a speech pathologist who worked with special needs children. She had arranged to spend Memorial Day weekend at her family’s lake house in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and had invited two friends, Linda and Marilyn, to join her. The family lake house was just a thirty-minute drive from Pine Bluff, where Beth grew up, and she held fond memories of her childhood days splashing about in Lake Hamilton.

She and her girlfriends had set off for the lake house the same day that Natalee left for Aruba. It was a relaxing time, and a chance to unwind. Everyone asked about Natalee’s graduation ceremony, and Beth promised she would send some pictures when she returned to Birmingham. After several days in Hot Springs, Beth and her friends decided to spend Sunday night in Memphis, Tennesee, rather than attempt the nine-hour drive home in one day.

Beth was excited when she woke up on Monday morning knowing she’d be seeing her daughter later that evening. Natalee was scheduled to arrive in Birmingham at 10:30
P.M.
and Beth had made plans to pick her up at the airport. She couldn’t wait to see her daughter’s expression when she gave her the
Wizard of Oz
figurines she’d bought for her at a gift shop in Hot Springs. Natalee had become captivited with the film during grade school, and it was an infatuation she never outgrew. Her friends found it amusing when Beth had surprised her daughter with a
Wizard of Oz
birthday cake that past October when she turned eighteen. It was classic Beth.

Beth was happy to stretch out in the backseat while her girlfriends sat up front. The group had just left Memphis and was driving south on Highway 78 when Beth received the call that every mother dreads.

Blakye Bearman, one of Natalee’s classmates, was on the line. She sounded scared and was stammering. “My mom wants to talk to you,” she said.

Blakye’s mother, Jodi, was the travel agent who had arranged the students’ senior trip. She and her mom were supposed to be in Aruba with the group but had to cancel at the last minute when Blakye came down with appendicitis.

“What’s the matter, Jodi?” Beth demanded, sensing something was wrong.

“Natalee didn’t show up this morning to get on the plane.” Jodi’s words hit Beth like a cold slap.

“What do you mean she didn’t get on the plane?”

Jodi related what the chaperones down on Aruba had told her. Natalee hadn’t returned to her hotel room after a night out at a bar. Her three roommates were frantic. Natalee was missing.

“Pull over!” Beth directed. She needed to call Jug. George “Jug” Twitty was Beth’s second husband, and Natalee’s stepfather. The couple had married in 2000, when Natalee was in the eighth grade.

Twitty was a large, rugged man with bushy salt-and-pepper hair and a cleft chin who looked like he could have played college football in his youth. He was the manager of an Alabama metals company that distributed steel and other materials used in construction, and had invited his pretty strawberry-blond bride and her two children, Natalee and Matt, to move in with him after the wedding.

Jug had two children of his own, George Jr. and Megan, who were several years older than Natalee and her brother. The four children got along well, and there was plenty of room for everyone in his stately red brick Mountain Brook home. While Jug was a successful businessman, his home was modest compared to some of his neighbors.