lying stepmother!

My dad passed away in December. His wife told us there is $ for my brother and I from an insurance policy. Needless to say, she gave us her personal check claiming that she was the "trustee". People have told us that an insurance company would cut the beneficiaries a check not give it to one person to disperse??? Also, she gave us two pieces of paper with the check, 1 - A schedule page of a so called insurance policy taken out in 1983 for $100,00 with the policy # and the underwriter of the policy blacked out. All that paper tells us is the amount of the premiums and when they were due. The second piece of paper given to us was a page (page 4) of what looks like a will that states" The trustees shall pay seven and one-half percent (7 1/2%) of the remaining trust estate to each of the following person, outright and free of trust, per stripes: and then it goes on to list my brother and myself. She claims that the 7 1/2 percent is of the $100,000 life insurance but aren't we entitled, according to the page 4 of the will to the "remaining trust estate" whatever that may be? She is being very secretive by blacking out info we feel. She gave us two pieces of paper trying to prove that we get a percentage of an insurance policy but the check came from her personal account not the insurance company. We think she is pulling something tricky here. By the way, we live in NY and he lived in NYC. Please advise..Sorry for the long diatribe!