Her husband behind bars, Spector's wife breaks silence

But there is also much about her that doesn't square with an unlined face chasing dollars. There is the almost masculine toughness that made Spector's bodyguards seem superfluous. "I can weed whack. Rip out walls. Lay tile," she said when discussing her favorite pastimes. She can be shockingly blunt. "We had sex. We were doing it all the time," she said when asked about rumors that her marriage was a business arrangement. And her approach to shopping is more T.J. Maxx than Fred Segal. Sitting two booths away from "Project Runway's" Heidi Klum at lunch, she bragged that her own pantsuit was 10 years old.

"I've had this since high school," she said proudly.

Most of all, there is the fact that her supposed meal ticket is gone, and so is much of his money. Under the terms of his sentence for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson, Spector will not be eligible for parole until 2028, when he is 88. He spent millions on his defense, and will spend more on his appeals. Rachelle Spector lives alone in the heavily mortgaged Alhambra mansion where Clarkson was shot on Feb. 3, 2003.

She would prefer selling the house, which is in need of repairs, and moving into an apartment, but her husband wants to keep the residence.

Rachelle Spector said royalties from Spector's work with acts including the Beatles, the Ronettes and Tina Turner have dropped significantly from the 1990s, when he was earning more than $1 million a year. The company that administers his catalog "takes most of the royalties at this point," she said. It is difficult to verify her statements, and with a civil lawsuit by Clarkson's mother pending, Spector has reason to minimize his wealth.

Spector's daughter, Nicole, who at 26 is two years younger than her stepmother, described her relationship with Rachelle Spector as "amicable" and said she respected the care shown her father.

"At this moment in time, I'm very grateful for her," said Nicole Spector, a writer who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. "If she were a gold digger we would be seeing the effects right now. I don't think she would be visiting him in jail every day."

Those visits are an extension of the relationship she and Spector had before he was convicted, friends say. She helped him dress for court, shaved his face, cut his nails, made him dinner, squeezed eye drops in his eyes, organized his medications and styled his hair.