American Notes LOS ANGELES

On L.A.'s mean streets they are known as "strawberries," young women, usually prostitutes, who trade sex for drugs. Since August 1985 police have discovered the bodies of at least nine strawberries; each woman had been shot to death with a small-caliber handgun. Last week lawmen found a suspect in the serial killings. In a twist right out of a lurid TV movie, he turned out to be a sheriff's deputy.

Rickey Ross, 40, a Los Angeles narcotics investigator, was stopped by cops for driving erratically. Ross, an 18-year veteran, was accompanied by a prostitute, though he insisted that he did not know about her profession. The woman said they were smoking cocaine.

In the trunk of Ross's car, officers discovered a handgun that matched the weapon used in three of the strawberry murders.