Wait a second... I was accessing i[12] of an array first declared as int i[12]. That shouldn't have even worked. It should have segfaulted. Anyway... hoping this puts me on the right track.
SON OF A BITCH. He specifically said in class only to count the NEAREST read to the write, not multiple reads at different points to the same write. But when I take out that stipulation --that is, I don't clear the write record at that element in the writeQueue[] array, I get the right answer according to the handout.