She was sitting to my right and one of the other attorneys began questioning her. I had papers scattered all over the table in front of me, and I wasn't really paying much attention to the questions. But finally I heard a couple points which I thought were important, and I jotted down some notes on one of my papers so I could ask the woman about them myself. The other attorney asked a few more questions, and to my surprise, he said he was finished.

Now it was my turn to ask questions. First I told everyone that my name was Steven Collier and that I was an attorney from Dallas. I was now about to begin questioning the woman, but I realize I didn't know what her name was. Since I was representing her, that was rather embarrassing. I quickly looked through my papers and concluded that her name was "Schnook." But I was unsure how to pronounce it and when I did so, I asked her if I had pronounced it correctly. She said it should have more of a "ch" sound. I pronounced it again and she seemed satisfied.

I began my questioning. First I was interested in knowing exactly when the accident had taken place. I quickly concluded that it had been about one and a half years ago. I would like to know why she had waited so long to take any action, but since I thought that fact would harm us more than help us, I didn't say anything.

Next I asked her about Korea, because there seemed to be some indication that she and her husband had been in Korea at the time of the accident.

Having nothing else to ask, I concluded my questions. One of the other lawyers now said to me that if they were in Korea, the insurance policy wouldn't have covered the accident. I pointed out that the woman hadn't said they had been in Korea at the time of the accident, and in fact they had been in Houston, Texas, where the husband had been immediately taken to a hospital after the accident.

As I stood up to leave, I realized I had on a pair of brown, pin-stripped pants, but a blue jacket. Apparently I had picked up someone else's jacket by mistake and had put it on. I took it off and began looking for my own jacket. Finally I found a gray jacket and realized the pants I had on were actually gray and that the gray jacket was mine. But I didn't know where to put the blue jacket, so I just left it on the back of a chair.

I headed out and got on an elevator with another lawyer. We talked about the case a few minutes, and I asked him if he knew exactly where the bullet from the gun had entered the man's head. I now realized the central issue in this case was whether the man had committed suicide or whether his death had been an accident. If he committed suicide, his widow wouldn't not be able to collect the insurance.

I was having serious doubts about her anyway. I thought she may be lying about something. I remembered having once before had a client like her who had lied to me. I thought it was happening again.