Calculus Student
Franklin & Marshall College
Lancaster, PA 17604
Dear Calculus Student:
I am so incredibly sorry to be writing to you again; I know that this is a really busy time for you but I hope that you can somehow find the time to help me once more. As you might have guessed from the official letterhead, I'm in trouble with the law once again. I'm writing you from the BCPD jail, where I'm being (yet again) held on suspicion of murder.
Here's how I got myself locked up this time: I went to visit the Absolutely Gorges, which have long been famous for being such a beautiful natural wonder, and which in the last few years have been famous because of the death of Bobo the Clown, who was shot out of a cannon and into the canyon nearly two years ago. At first it was believed that his death was suicide, but then some calculus students proved that the circus owner, Rick Rasterdly, murdered poor Bobo.
At any rate, the site of Bobo's death has become quite a tourist attraction, and so I took a Saturday to go visit the place. If I'd known that my infamous ex, Jeremy, and his sleazy pal Sheriff Gocher were going to be there, too, I never would have gone. Gocher says that I followed Jeremy there, but I swear that's not true. In fact, I hardly saw him the whole time I was there, except for a few secondsit's those few seconds that are causing all the ruckus.
What happened was I walked along the cliff-walk, like everyone else does. The cliff-walk is a steel walkway that winds along the face of the canyon and goes right by the place where Bobo met his end. It's pretty shaky and not very wide, and within minutes I was grateful I'm not afraid of heights, because there's quite a drop. The walk runs more than 1000 feet below the top of the gorge, but 3,280 feet above the floor! There's a bend in the cliff-wall right where Bobo hit; just before that, there's a gate where people can, as the brochure says, "punch your ticket", which I did. (There's a photo-copy of my ticket on the next page). Since the murderer was discovered by a trick of timing, everyone is asked to synchronize their watches at this gate, but I wasn't wearing a watch. You can't see around the bend from the gate, and so they use this as a natural place to charge folks: you have to pay $3 to continue on.
So, I paid my $3, punched my ticket, and walked around the bend. I heard someone screaming, and thought at first it was some kind of joke, but as I came up on the place where Bobo died, I saw a person already falling down into the gorgeit was Jeremy, and he was the one screaming. I didn't even know it was Jeremy at the time, I just stood there, gripping the railing, staring awestruck. Suddenly Gocher ran toward me from further along the catwalk. He looked over the edge, saw the body, saw that I was pale as a ghost, and arrested me.
Gocher says that I knew that he and Jeremy and some buddies were going to be there that day, seeing the sights. He'd been with Jeremy until about a minute before his death, but then left Jeremy behind in order to he catch up with the rest of the group. By now, he's quite pleased that he's got meit's revenge for my escaping last time.
Jeremy's watch stopped at 1:54:09; the ticket puncher said that Jeremy had, along with Gocher and everyone else, set his watch to the official clock. My ticket, as you can see, was punched at 1:53:57. This gives me a whole 12 seconds to have walked from the punch, around the curve, and pushed Jeremy. At first I thought this proved I didn't do it, but when I counted out 12 seconds to myself, I realized it's a pretty long time. I just don't know what to do!
I am so sick of this jail cell. Please do help to get me out! My preliminary hearing is November 11 (eleven-eleven: Deputy Dirk would have loved it, rest his soul!). If you could find a way to clear me before then, I'd be eternally grateful!
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