Deputy Inspector Zabalza

Deputy Inspector Zabalza emerges as a capable but emotionally implicated investigator: his concern for an abused teenager makes him wary of subjecting the boy to a predawn police visit, while his identification with the boy risks compromising his assessment of the case. His scenes at the desecrated church and in the investigation’s tense discussions show both the value of that compassion and the discipline Amaia Salazar demands of a police team.

Role in the Investigation

At six in the morning in Arizkun, after a small Bobcat had broken through the church’s surrounding wall, Zabalza followed Amaia and Iriarte around the perimeter with a flashlight. Amaia ordered another full inspection even though the area had already been checked. His presence places him within the team responding to the attack, working through the site methodically rather than treating the breach as a reason to rush straight inside.

The wider inquiry was struggling to distinguish the violence committed by individual abusers from a repeated signature that might connect separate murders. In the cases Amaia had reviewed, the suspected killers shared features such as a close relationship to the victim, prolonged abuse, and violent or impulsive behavior. The repeated postmortem removal of the same arm, and the fact that it was missing from each scene, did not fit that profile. One suspect had confessed to killing his wife but denied involvement in the amputation; in another case, Jasón Medina was bewildered when asked about Johana Márquez’s missing arm. This is the investigative problem surrounding Zabalza’s work: a common feature of the crimes points beyond the men who carried out the killings.

The team also encountered the word Tarttalo scratched into a cell wall with a toothbrush handle. A similar message, written in the same unusual spelling, had appeared after the Logroño killer’s suicide. Amaia argued that the combination of the repeated amputation and the distinctive message suggested the hand of one individual, rather than a group merely copying details from the press. The evidence does not make Zabalza the author of that theory, but it establishes the wider case in which his fieldwork and judgments take place.

Empathy and the Question of the Boy

Zabalza objects to treating a teenage boy as a likely perpetrator. He describes him as a victim of beatings by his father since his mother’s death, a bright student whose interest in local history and origins helps him endure life at home. In Zabalza’s account, the boy’s poor self-esteem and lack of confidence make him an implausible candidate for the church attacks. His assessment rests not only on an appraisal of the boy’s capacity but on an understanding of the abuse and fear shaping his circumstances.

Amaia offers a competing interpretation. She acknowledges that adolescents can feel intense anger and suggests that a boy who appears submissive might sometimes express contained rage through attention-seeking acts. She also thinks the attacks bear the boy’s signature. The disagreement is therefore not simply between sympathy and suspicion: both investigators are trying to interpret the same behavior, but Zabalza emphasizes the boy’s vulnerability while Amaia tests whether that vulnerability could coexist with an outburst of anger.

Amaia then identifies the danger in Zabalza’s position: she believes his recognition of himself in the boy is making him lose perspective. His response is immediate and angry; he challenges her with an insult. The exchange exposes the tension in his empathy. It makes him attentive to the human cost of police action, yet it may also lead him to defend the boy before the evidence has settled the question.

Conflict, Accountability, and Restraint

Amaia does not allow the outburst to end the discussion. She moves close to Zabalza, tells him that he has not intimidated her, and insists that he follow basic standards of courtesy. Her rebuke extends beyond his tone: she accuses him of disloyalty, of giving Montes a laboratory report that embroiled him in trouble, and of speaking to civilians outside the investigation in a way that put the safety of colleagues at risk. These are Amaia’s allegations in the confrontation; the scene presents them as part of the professional breach she says she must address.

She also distinguishes humane identification from uncritical involvement. Feeling for a victim, she argues, is part of being human and can help investigators obtain information that others might not willingly give. But investigators must retain enough distance to assess the evidence. She asks Zabalza again whether he identifies with the boy. His anger gives way to a lowered gaze, and he concedes the practical point that the boy should not be pulled out of bed at six in the morning when he is a minor.

That answer does not erase their disagreement about suspicion, but it turns the exchange toward a concrete limit on investigative conduct. Zabalza’s concern for the boy survives Amaia’s challenge, now expressed as a reason to defer an intrusive step rather than as proof that the boy could not be involved. The scene leaves his empathy intact while making clear that it has to coexist with scrutiny and procedural judgment.

Work After the Confrontation

Later, after Amaia leaves a room, she instructs Zabalza to circulate a description of a man with distinctive fingers. He acknowledges the order with a nod and lowered head. Iriarte then tells Amaia that her husband, James, has called with an urgent message. Zabalza’s brief response offers no further account of his feelings, but it shows him returning to the practical work of the investigation after the clash.

Across these moments, Zabalza is neither reduced to an obstacle nor established as an infallible judge of character. His attention to the battered teenager supplies the investigation with a humane counterweight to suspicion; his personal identification makes that judgment vulnerable to bias. Amaia’s insistence on distance does not require indifference. Instead, their confrontation makes the distinction itself central: compassion can reveal what a police inquiry might otherwise overlook, but it cannot by itself determine who is responsible.