The plans that night 8 December 2001 (Saturday) tentatively included watching America's Sweethearts starring Catherine Zeta-Jones (who I'm sure was about "25" or so at the time). At 9:45 PM, Michael and Kathleen were sharing a bottle of wine (per Todd and friend). At 10:40 PM, someone logged onto the computer, likely Kathleen. At 11:08 PM, Kathleen took the work call from Helen regarding the 10 AM next day meeting (Sunday). Helen overheard her asking for Michael's email address, which Kathleen then provided. Helen testified that Kathleen was quite coherent during their talk (no slurring of words, etc). The call ended with the understanding that she would have to check Michael's email account for the email that night. At 11:53 PM, the email arrives, but the attachment is never opened.

It's possible that after the call, between 11:15 - 11:45-ish, she perused his email. It's possible that Kathleen was already starting to get suspicious of him having affairs, as he used QuickClean to remove hundreds of files from his hard-drive earlier that day. Only, Michael didn't think to check his "sent mail" file, where there might be illicit correspondence to other men still hanging around. Perhaps Kathleen stumbled upon them.

Perhaps Michael drunkenly gave Kathleen his email and then quickly realised it was a mistake. She discovered/substantiated his secret life. His life as he knew it (the writing and political careers, his wife helping with his campaign, his side affairs, the mansion he lived in, the dinners, etc) was finished. His instinct was to kill her, because there was no way she was going to put up with this after all that she had done for him and his sons, his stepdaughters (he also brought them into the marriage), as well as all of the sacrifices she has made. She said they were finished. The memory of Ratliff's death is in his unconscious (people can die at the foot of stairs) when she comes down the stairs to confront him, and he's ready with the blow poke. He bludgeons her to death.

Afterwards, all he knows is now his story has to involve him finding her like that, even though he has no idea who else could have done it. He cleans and hides the blow poke. He decides to make two calls to 9-1-1. The first will be to "establish life" (without thinking, he probably thought it would look better to find her "alive"). The followup will be to embellish his concern for his wife. Etc. What he doesn't realise is that the first call at 2:41 AM would be contradicted by what the paramedics ascertained at 2:47 AM: that she had probably been deceased for hours. And it seems likely that she probably died in the 11 o'clock hour (even though her time of death is officially some time after that).

It's not a very convincing story, but it's all he has in a moment of passion and "survival." There are no signs of a break-in. Perhaps he was secretly hoping this would be the road the police would travel down. This man, whose wife just "died," goes to check his email a few hours later (by 5 AM) and mumbles to himself. Of course he goes to his computer. It is basically the very thing which brought down his entire life.

This scenario best fits Occam's Razor, as the logic supports this by a long mile more than:

-A drunken accident. Per Helen at 11:08 PM, Kathleen speaks normally and professionally after drinking wine with a BAL of 0.07, when an accident would have had to have happened in the next 45 minutes.

-A vengeful owl. All that was found on Kathleen were micro-feathers which could have fallen on her whilst drinking wine out by the pool. Why didn't Michael hear screams? If she was attacked outside, surely he would. If she was attacked inside, surely there would be large feathers littered about the house.