Last weekend, Anita, who was working out at the Aspen Club & Spa, called Thompson, who asked her to come home so they could work on his weekly ESPN column. She said the two never said goodbye; rather, he placed the receiver beside his typewriter that sat on the kitchen counter, loaded his revolver, and pulled the trigger.

"I was on the phone with him, he set the receiver down and he did it. I heard the clicking of the gun," said the author's widow, adding that the clicking sounded as if he was striking the keys of his typewriter. She heard a loud, muffled noise in the background, but did not know what had happened. "I was waiting for him to get back on the phone." He never did.

Both Anita and Hunter's son Juan say Hunter had planned his death:

In recent months, Thompson, 67, had repeatedly talked of killing himself, she said, and had been issuing directives verbally and in writing of what he wanted done with his body, his unpublished work and his assets. His suicidal designs put an intense strain on their relationship, she said, but his motives were not rooted in desperation or fear -- he simply felt his time had come.

He wanted to leave on top of his game. I wish I could have been more supportive of his decision. It was a problem for us," said Anita Thompson, who retreated to her parents' house in Fort Collins when the two would quarrel. There, she said, he would fax her love letters.