Las Vegas — In the days after Ron Rudin disappeared, Margaret Rudin seemed more concerned about accounting for his millions, questions police were asking and wiping her fingerprints off a listening device than her husband's disappearance, Margaret Rudin's sister said Wednesday.

Testifying for the prosecution, Dona Cantrell-Robinson said that she finally confronted Margaret Rudin about her brother-in-law's unexplained absence after being told for days by sister that she didn't want to talk about it.

"I said, 'I hope you don't know something,'" said Cantrell, who rarely looked at her older sister during nearly three hours on the witness stand. "She said, 'I don't give a s***.'"

Jurors sitting on Margaret Rudin's murder and eavesdropping trial made copious notes during the testimony of Cantrell, a tall blond woman who spoke in soft tones. All 12 jurors and six alternates made note of Cantrell's testimony that Margaret Rudin did not have any gifts for her missing husband under a Christmas tree in the couple's home.

The suggestion by the prosecution was that Margaret Rudin did not buy gifts for her husband because she knew he would never be coming home.

Margaret Rudin looked down at a notebook and whispered often to defense lawyer Michael Amador as her sister testified, but never looked up toward the witness, who wore a blue pantsuit. Rudin showed no emotion as Cantrell, 49, described a troubled relationship between the defendant and 64-year-old victim.

"She complained a lot about the relationship ... that he was having an affair, that they were having tensions about money, that he was difficult," said Cantrell, who spoke often with her at-times estranged sister between August 1994 and December 1994.

According to Cantrell, Margaret Rudin talked of divorcing her fifth husband, who was worth $11 million, but wanted to wait because of his declining health.

Cantrell helped prosecutor Gary Guymon with testimony that supported his theory that Margaret Rudin shot her husband in his bed with a .22-caliber semiautomatic Ruger and then burned his body out in the desert in a trunk missing from Margaret Rudin's antiques shop. Cantrell identified the trunk in a photograph she took in the store the day before Ron Rudin disappeared. The trunk was never seen again in the store, according to Cantrell, a part-time employee there.

The testimony also buffeted Guymon's claim that Margaret Rudin was not concerned about her husband's disappearance but was concerned about his assets, which she estimated at $11.3 million on papers that Cantrell saw. Cantrell testified that Margaret Rudin also took her husband's will and trust documents from his real estate office the day after he went missing and numerous other documents eight days later. She also said that Margaret Rudin expressed concern that she had referred to her husband in the past tense once while speaking to a missing persons detective.

Margaret Rudin, according to her sister, never mentioned suspicions that business associates had her husband killed but claimed that "the mob" had him hit. Cantrell said she never got a response when she suggested to her sister that it would unlikely that the mob would kill Ron Rudin in his bed, cut off his head, dump his body in the desert and then clean up the bedroom.

On cross-examination by Amador, Cantrell said that she and her sister were not all that close and had no contact for years at a stretch. Amador also asked Cantrell about psychiatric treatment, multiple failed marriages and medication she took for depression. He argued later that Cantrell's mental health history casts doubt about her memory and perception of reality.

"It would be the defense's position that most of the things she said were made up," Amador told Judge Joseph Bonaventure outside the presence of the jury.

The questioning was cut off for the day at 2:45 a.m. EST to allow the judge and several of the attorneys involved in the case to attend a funeral for a prominent Las Vegas attorney.

Cantrell will take the stand again Thursday morning.